We cross the border into Pakistan with relative ease and find ourselves sitting amongst of money changers in a tent in the searing heat, most of them have walked out the era of the Raj and everybody is excited at the prospect of the next few days of our adventure. We do our deals with the money changers but because of the rates they are offering however we only change a small amount, and we are not expecting to spend much anyway. We are all waiting on the truck, when disaster strikes, our driver Adam slips off the steps and is rolling in agony, one of our lot is a nurse, and he is taken off to hospital, we are left sitting there hoping all is well. Adam returns a very short while later, ( he would not have even been booked in to hospital in the time he was away) and all is well for us, he has just twisted it. We then all have to sign a book with a policeman a couple of times, we have picked up an armed guard who takes us to customs to get the truck booked into the country, we collect a couple of motorcyclists who are going our way and move off, we travel about a mile and encounter the first of many checkpoints, it is our hottest day so far( we find out from one of the bikers it reaches at least 47 degrees!) phew! no wonder most of us just doze or drink water, gallons of it and most of it is hot as nothing stays cool in this heat. Jackies soap has turned to liquid and a sealed jar of marmite expands and opens. We are now traveling on some of the bumpiest roads we have encountered so far, but the sites keep us happy, (just) the jingle lorries trundle past full to overloading, there is sand on the roads and twisters to watch. Adam says the drive will only take about 11 hours!
The guards change several times as we pass through different regions, and feed water to the bikers. Now I am not sure what the guards are supposed to do, most are old men carrying a machine gun no signs of ammo or tactical skill, but hey they are there to make sure we travel through one of the most dangerous roads in the world, and they do. We reach our first night stopover a city called Dalbandi it is hot and dusty, there is a mix of donkeys motorbikes and lorries travelling through it, we pull into the hotel and it takes about two minutes before we have an audience of men and kids( no women).
The hotel looks like it has been opened up just for us, not even the electrics are on! The rooms are so hot that when the electric come on the fans just moves hot air about we are not aloud out of the hotel as it is considered unsafe to do so without a guard, even the bikers try it and are stopped. So we have to eat in the hotel (what a marketing strategy!)
Mind you they cannot do their maths and a couple of times give me more change back than the cost of the goods I bought, even after I tried to give them the money back.
Phew that was the hottest night I have ever tried to sleep in, every time I woke up I just got in the cold shower and went back to bed without drying myself, I was dry by the time I got into bed again, and no mistake I must have taken ten showers that night it made no difference, but I was clean.
After breakfast under armed guard of tea and bread, we travel off and are stopped within about hundred metres( we have two police guards on board) the bikes tend to get stopped more than us because they are so unusual.
After that stop we are stopped lkokiioudqxtc sightvvbn bb of the other W/check point! Still it is all very friendly and does not take to long.
The weather is not as hot as the day before, the roads are bumpy, twisty and we travel through mountains and deserts, there is much to see, we try to take photos but they usually end up of the road or the sky as it it so bumpy, the truck bounces like nothing before a bit like a 10 hour roller-coaster!
We see areas of extreme poverty where people live as they have done for centuries there is still satalite dishes occassionally and the constant thump of single cylindered motorbikes with all manner of loads on them.
We then hit a proper highway for our run into Quetta the capital of Baluchestan and what a shock it is, noisy, busy and we are the centre of attraction. Every bus lorry tractor and donkey cart is highly decorated to the extent they cannot possibly see out of their windows. There are people on the roofs of the busses with their lives beside them. By the side of the road are stalls selling just about everything you can think of alive or dead!
We have an escort through the city to our hotel, the Bloomstar hotel. As soon as we stop there is an audience all good humoured, but we are very wary of the people as they get so close to us, take photos. There is a curfew at Quetta for westerners of 6pm so we have to rush to book in and sort our gear out. Most of us have upgraded so we do not need to camp in the grounds, it is cooler here and the rooms even have TV some in English! But no internet, however the gardens are a nice safe haven to the maddness and the open sewers outside.
We order a truck dinner that turns up two hours late in the hotel resturant, still it was nice, curry of course! We go to bed to the sounds of prayers outside.
Tomorrow we rest, so we can explore the shops and experience our first Pakistan city on our own, only till 6 pm though.