Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 12
SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO?
At the end of our exchange trip to Poland, Mick Geddes, the Burgess boys and I re-
turned to Warsaw from Morskie Oko. Andrez Zawada invited us to dinner in the
large comfortable house he shared with his gracious and accomplished wife, Anna.
It was the night before we were due to return to England and the first time we
talked seriously about a joint expedition for the following year.
'We can provide the equipment and transport, you can bring the dollars we will
need once we are in Afghanistan,' Andrez said.
It was simple, so it seemed. Everything was in our favour; the cost was incredibly
low compared to organising everything from the UK, the Poles knew the Hindu
Kush well, had good relations with the authorities in Kabul and a list of possible
objectives. We had become friends in our weeks together. I liked Zawada. He was
from a breed of climbing warlord that existed only in Eastern Europe, in command
of his troops and able to get anything he needed from the state to make his expedi-
tions happen. Some said he was too cozy with the communists but he refuted this.
He was Poland's equivalent of Chris Bonington, except that the rules of the game
were very different in Eastern Europe.
'What is the difference between me seeking sponsorship from a corrupt political
corporation, and Bonington getting money for his expeditions from big powerful
capitalists?'
What the Poles lacked in freedom, they made up with a luxury not well known in
the West: that of an intense friendship born in adversity to the repressive politics
and economics in their own country. I understood instinctively that this degree of
friendship among the Polish climbers was the secret of their successes in the
Greater Ranges. I left Poland with a plan to return the following year with the
same team and head east.
It was not that simple in the end. None of the team who came to Poland that
winter was available for the summer of 1977. The idea of a joint expedition seemed
too uncertain for the others. Instead, the Burgesses and Mick joined a legendary
year-long trip to South America with Alan Rouse, Brian Hall, Rab Carrington and
an extended cast of climbers. Part of this story is told in
The Burgess Book of Lies
.
Pete Boardman was going elsewhere in the Himalaya. I had to start from scratch.
