<!-- @page { margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } -->

This morning we had to wait for our escort to arrive before Steve was able to go out and get fresh bread for breakfast, but in the meantime we were entertained by a tiny crazy Balochi man who spoke some English (Steve had described him the previous day as the village idiot). He kept saying the same things over and over about how Balochistan was great etc, and we had to come to his shop or something. He talked to John for ages and kept calling him Grandfather, and the rest of us brothers and sisters. I have no idea what he was saying most of the time but the other police guys hanging around thought he was hilarious. Their bosses kept trying to make him leave us alone from time to time but he wouldn't go away. Eventually Steve got back with freshly made flatbreads (they are starting to look more like naans or chapattis now) and some very fresh yoghurt for breakfast.

Eventually we got underway and had another day of driving across flat desert, interspersed with driving through hilly desert. Really getting quite sick of desert now. At least it's not so hot here. First up this morning we actually had 2 armed guards in the back of the truck with us, and one of them was letting Lee and Irish Shane hold his gun and take pictures. After those guys left we were back to escorts. We stopped somewhere along the way to eat our leftover curry for lunch, but we pretty much pressed on along some pretty shocking and narrow roads towards Quetta. We passed some of the most colourful and amazingly decorated trucks I have ever seen - some of them had bells on and everything! We got into Quetta late in the afternoon and were escorted through the bustling town to the Bloom Star Hotel, where most are camping in the grassy courtyard.

We had all planned to go out to a Chinese buffet for dinner, but the police wouldn't let us leave the hotel because they were worried for our safety. Steve tried to convince them to let him out to buy some food but they wouldn't even have that. Meanwhile Norma and Annette had left to go and find an internet café - they found one and got back after the police had arrived so they were the only ones to manage to get connected at all. Its been almost 2 weeks since we were online - I dread to think what my email looks like and the backlog of photos is starting to pile up a bit.

We ordered some food at the hotel and waited and waited for it. The hotel had a licence to sell beer so some of the guys tucked in, but not too much as most people are pretty dehydrated. Our food didn't come until almost midnight, and I had quite a nice chicken sha shalik which came with rice, and Shane had chicken masala. No curry just yet as we're all a bit delicate!