North Pakistan – Mountain Paradise
Ice-cold, fast flowing, its round river stones roll in the current, telling soft tales. I feel precariously balanced above the brown blur, just a few strands of wire and driftwood keeping me dry. The suspended structure is a 150-metre masterpiece of make-do engineering, more gap than bridge and famous in these parts as a test of tourists’ mettle. Feet fall on five strands of wire through which assorted oddments of driftwood are woven; spacings are wide and variable. Crossing this bridge, carefully placing each step, is the first time I’ve looked down since we arrived in north Pakistan, to an area of the Hunza Valley known as Gojal. More often my eyes are pulled up by the peaks and spires that crowd and crown this most beautiful of valleys, dominating the skyline. The towering tops are part of the Karakoram Range and this valley, etched by the Hunza River, is the only one to cut the across its spine. It is neck-straining country. The Karakoram is a ‘who’s who’ of the world’s tallest peaks – including K-2, second only to Everest. And its valleys deliver a glut of glaciers, the longest outside the polar regions, with some creeping right to the road edge. Just to the north lies Batura, a 56-kilometre mecca for trekkers, on our back door is Passu and slightly south is the astonishingly black Ghulkin Glacier, the Darth Vader of ice rivers thanks to a coating of fine dust and scree. Despite the wealth of water trapped as ice, the landscape here is hard and hot – well baked by the summer sun, well scoured by winter’s rains into shades of ochre, brown, caramel and grey. Schist slabs, layered on the ground, tinkle like glass when stepped on. Their mica content catches the afternoon’s sun and turns a hillside into a giant mirror, dazzling the eye. It is only by turning irrigation into an art form that the Gojalis have been able to create fertile villages, patchworks of green in this naturally arid land. Carefully gradated channels draw dark lines across the hillsides carrying glacier melt to terraced fields and orchards up to 8km distant. Where the water stops, the greenery stops. The 240-kilometre Hunza Valley is an ancient and remote kingdom in the northeast of Pakistan, nestled close to China and the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan. The simplicity of village life belies the valley’s strategic and economic importance. Not so many years ago, travel through its narrow gorges and high passes was treacherous as local brigands supplemented meagre agricultural outputs by raiding silk route caravans, trading slaves and capturing loot. We spot vestigial traces of the ancient silk trail from the bus window as we drive along the magnificent Karakoram Highway, down from the Khunjerab Pass, ‘zero line’ between Pakistan and China. Precipitous paths zigzag near vertical faces, their retaining walls clinging impossibly to cliffs. Amazingly, parts were used as recently as 1978, until the highway was completed. Which is not to say the modern road is low risk. A sign warns, “Landsliding” – present tense. And it is. Dirt and stones stream down a wide scree slope. In case we fail to appreciate the risk, from the rapids below poke the black wheels of a Chinese truck and trailer unit, one of two swept off the road by a sudden landslide, their drivers lost. Despite the slips and potholes, the Karakoram Highway is hailed as the greatest wonder of modern Pakistan, blasted out of the side of the mountains by Pakistani and Chinese army construction teams. A monument at Khunjerab Pass marks the deprivations of those who built it; one report claiming eight deaths for every one of its 1200 kilometres. In grand prose the plaque declares the highway greater than the Great Wall, successor to the Silk route and as impressive an economic asset as the Suez Canal. We follow it no further south than the villages of Passu and Borit Lake, just 100km in from the Chinese border. Our choice, after weeks of non-stop travel in China, is to drop anchor in one area and soak in its serenity and scenery, and there can be few better places. Passu is the centre of trekking in Gojal, well endowed with hotels, jeep drivers and guides. Which is not to suggest it is a Queenstown or Rotorua. Passu looks what it is, one of the oldest settlements in Gojal, already an ancient kingdom. Random floods have torn off its waterfront and stemmed its growth. Only 900 people now live here, where once five times that number farmed land now washed away. No effort is required to find a spectacular view. From the back door of our Passu hotel we see Mt Shispare, 7619-metres, a shark’s tooth on the western horizon, catching the sun’s last rays, foot-tripping wisps of cloud. On the far side of the Hunza River, is Tupopdan, a 6106-metre collection of spires and steeples, framed by apple trees alongside the hotel’s verandah. I watch Tupopdan’s changing moods and colours while talking families, religion and politics with proprietor, Mr Azim Shah. Business has been good this year, lots of foreign tourists, lot’s of guiding work for his son and nephews. He’s pleased after three slow years. But this is 10 days before 11 September 2001, a date now etched in western history. Within a fortnight parts of the Karakoram Highway will be temporarily blocked by rocks and landmines, in solidarity against American aggressors. Pakistan has always been a politically unsettled land, a legacy of its partition from India in 1947, but it is hard to reconcile this image with our experience of Gojal, where friendliness and hospitality are endemic, kindness and generosity rife. The only explosion we hear is someone’s malfunctioning pressure cooker spraying dahl over the ceiling. I drink his sweet milky tea while 9/11 is still the unthinkable future and listen to Mr Shah explain the secret of the north’s hospitality. It is, he says, because of the particular Islamic faith practiced here. While most Pakistanis are Muslim, most northeastern people are Ismaili. They are less political than Sunni and Shias Muslims, and more relaxed about women’s place in the world, he says. Ismailis take their direction from a living imam, Prince Karim Aga Khan, who asks few but fundamental things of his followers – belief in Allah, a good education, a kind personality, and co-operation with the government, no matter which country they live in. He says this northern hospitality, along with mountains, is the secret of Gojal’s successful tourism, though awareness of the impacts of trekkers is becoming increasingly apparent. Limited wood resources are under pressure for cooking fires, and not everyone welcomes outsiders. Mr Shah’s nephew, Nasir, guides treks to nearby Shimshal Valley, where his parents live. Nasir says some Shimshalis resent trekkers, they want to retain their traditions and culture. Neither are they happy with proposals to create a national park in their valley, which will remove traditional grazing and hunting grounds. The only sign of ibex or Marco Polo sheep we have seen are horns mounted above house lintels, there seem few left to hunt. Mr Shah talks sadly of times when two flocks of ibex frequented Passu, till the army moved in and shot them for food. According to the World Conservation Union (IUCN), half of Pakistan’s wildlife species are now extinct or endangered, though efforts are being made to turn this around. Conservation strategies are being developed and environmental advocates, women’s groups and international organisations, such as WWF, harnessed to the cause. From Passu we move 10 kilometres down the Karakoram Highway to Borit Lake, and the rustic inn of Mr Tawald Khan, within cooey of Ghulkin Glacier. Although perched above a small lake fed by under-ground streams, water is a huge problem for the hotel and the village. A high mineral content makes the lake undrinkable and unfit for crop irrigation. Water is so scarce, Mr Khan has a supply one day in 11, taking turns with other village families to fill his tanks and irrigate crops. It’s a challenge to supply the hotel; our ablution facilities are cold water and a bucket. One luxury we do get, albeit tenuous, is electricity. A single knotted power line links the hotel to the highway, but it’s enough to cool the cola in his well-stocked general store. The small shed brims with travellers’ treasures – chap stick, a travel mirror, soap, bicycle tubes and bottled water. For school bus parties who come to study the lake, he stocks industrial size packets of banana bubblegum. On a hot day’s walk to shepherd’s huts mid-way up the lateral moraine of Passu Glacier, carrying six bottles of Mr Khan’s water, we stop to photograph lizards. These reptiles are numerous, varied and curious. Elbows out, on tiptoes over hot ground, they race to check us over, veering off to strike a catatonic pose on a nearby rock or under the low branches of a pungent bush. While Dave belly-stalks his subject, I study the glacier’s rugged jumble of peaks and troughs, a stormy sea frozen in time. The weighty stillness is broken by the deeply resonant echoes of rock and ice falls within the glacier. It looks huge and permanent but the landscape in front of me is constantly on the move, a dynamic, unstoppable bulldozer. As the sun arcs high, only the blue of the sky and the white snow remain crisp in colour; mountains appear two-dimensional, cut-outs pasted on blue. In contrast, evening’s golden light brings depth and colour, picking out every ridge and steeple. We get a different view and feel from the top of Borit Sar, the ridge between the Passu and Ghulkin glaciers. Although a respectable 4023-metres high (Aoraki Mt Cook is 3754-metres), it is a mere pimple in the company of the Karakoram Range, not even tall enough for snow. Below us Passu Glacier’s huge troughs are tiny ripples. Near Shispare’s summit a slab of snow hangs in the balance, waiting to avalanche. On the south horizon is Ultar, a 7388-metre giant. And always we can hear the Hunza River whisper. One day we take a break from walking, hitch a ride south to the relative metropolis of Karimabad and are easily talked into buying an embarrassing number of beautiful rugs. Each deal is done over a cup of tea, with an apple to see us on our way. Our wallets are empty but our pockets bulge. That evening, our last in Pakistan before heading back to China, we sit on Mr Khan’s verandah overlooking hollyhocks, marigolds, apricot trees and the lake below, an ever changing mirror of green, brown and pink. We’ve been captured by this place - its people and mountains, and the human endeavour that makes life here possible. Water may be scarce in Gojal but human sweat runs free. We are sad to leave the serenity and splendour of Borit Lake. And then Mr Khan sets another thermos down. A cup of milk tea, hot, one sugar, can make everything okay with the world. ends Fact File How to get there We entered Pakistan along the Karakoram Highway, over the Khunjerab Pass from China, leaving from Kashgar. It’s a two-day journey, with an overnight in Tashkurgan, the Chinese border town. Landslides can cancel trips, even in summer. Bring water to drink and snacks to eat. When to go Spring and summer, March through to September, are good times to be in the north, with pleasant temperatures and few monsoon effects. All seasons have big day-night temperature differences. The very best weather is May to June and September to October. Both men and women should wear long, loose, non-revealing garments, in deference to their Muslim hosts. Pakistanis puzzle why so many foreigners refuse this courtesy. Who can help: Check out the website of Kiwi company, Silk Road Adventures New Zealand, on www.silkroad.co.nz © Marieke Hilhorst/ORIGIN NATURAL HISTORY MEDIA |