How I Got to AfghanistanHow I Got to Afghanistan The first leg of my journey to Afghanistan back in 1970 was in the company of a British couple. In exchange for paying a share of the petrol they gave me a lift. From Istanbul, in Turkey, to Isfahan, in southern Iran, I traveled in a small car known as a Citroen 2CV with a couple who called themselves Zebidee and Zoë, but whose true names were Frank and Sheila. I didn’t think much of it the time, but recently I tried doing a Google search of these names and found a lot of facebook references but nothing that would reveal who they really were or are, or what they could possibly have been thinking back then, so if anyone who happens to read this has a clue please send me an email or something!
As I now remember it, the route we traveled was from Istanbul to Ankara, then up along the Black Sea coast to Trabzon, and then east past Mt. Ararat toward the border with Iran. It took nearly a week to arrive at the town of Tabriz, Iran, fighting a stiff headwind in the underpowered, little two cylinder Citroen. Today, according to Google Earth the trip takes about four days. Times have indeed changed. I left Zebidee and Zoé behind in Tehran after the three of us had made a site-seeing trip to the ancient Iranian city of Isfahan to see the ancient bridges and mosques. I then passed couple days in Tehran, sending and collecting mail and engaging the people, savoring the local food and seeing the sites of the capital. Answering a message posted on notice board in a Tehran hotel, and after brief negotiations, I caught a ride on to Afghanistan with a couple of guys driving a late model Mercedes Benz van. This was a nice, big, white, diesel, air-conditioned machine with room to sleep in the back. One of these guys, a tall man who called himself Merlin, sported a long beard and dressed a costume of high boots, a flowing robe and topped off by a tall, conical Harry Potter-ish hat covered with images of the moon and the stars. The other, the truck’s owner, was a wiry California surfer named John. The three of us set out the back way to Afghanistan, that is, south and east through Iran’s desert. The intention being to enter the heart of Central Asia through the southern border of Pakistan and Afghanistan at the outpost called Chaman/Spin Boldak, after having endured the long Pakistani desert of Baluchistan. This required that we pass through the now notorious city of Quetta, now a Taliban stronghold. The normal route, traveled by most hippies on their way east, would have been to go east from Tehran, pass through the Iranian city of Meshed, thence to arrive in the ancient Afghan town of Herat, just beyond the western Iranian frontier. In light of the drama of the passing scenery and the fact we were truly in the middle of nowhere as we found our way across the Iranian desert it might have seemed an uneventful passage save for two events: Somewhere between the Iranian towns of Kerman and Bam, having had a blow-out and carrying only one spare, we realized we needed a new tire. So at Bam after a nice lunch in a local hotel, we negotiated with a local tire dealer the trade of some cash and a brand new Pentax 200 mm telephoto camera lens in exchange for a suitable tire. We then departed the town unaware that the tire guy was harboring some dissatisfaction over the trade. Thus, for many miles we were followed – actually chased – across the desert at a high rate of speed by a 1953 Chevy over-loaded with men carrying rifles and shotguns bristling from the window. We were able to outrun the gang and could only assume the tire guy was not the owner of a suitable Pentax camera to which he might attach the lens. But at this stage it was far more dangerous to stop and try to explain the situation that to assume any bad karma the transaction might carry.
The road we traveled was really a mere track through the desert, a mere rut at times, interspersed with sections of washboard, just wide enough in most places for two vehicles to pass one another. From time to time a stone would kick up from the tire of a passing car and strike the front panel of the van. In order to prevent driver fatigue we took our turns driving while one or the other of us snoozed in the back. As I took my turn at the wheel one day I could see approaching us in the distance, a large vehicle trailing a huge cloud of dust. Coming closer together, the oncoming vehicle was revealed to be a full size, over-the-road Mercedes Benz tour bus, bright red and dust covered. As the two vehicles passed one another, at considerable speed, I watched, very clearly and with complete horror, as a large rock – more fist sized – popped madly from the left rear tire of the bus and assumed a perfect arc that must inevitably strike our windscreen almost exactly top center. As the stone made impact, the entire expanse of glass, from side to side, top to bottom, instantaneously shattered into thousands of tiny granules – but it momentarily stayed in place – until we hit the next bit of washboard road, at which time what seemed like an acre of miniscule shards came crashing into the cabin of the van, followed by a massive cloud of fine Pakistani desert road dust. Impossible to find a windshield for such a vehicle, we resorted to fashioning a large piece of plastic window screening to the front opening to keep out the larger pieces of road debris and continued on our way east, with the fine Central Asian dust finding its way into every corner of the van and every hidden section of our persons. We wrapped our heads in turbans, leaving only enough space for our eyes to scan the coming road. A few days later we arrived in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, on a day late August, 1970 I had arrived in Afghanistan. After solemn goodbyes and promises to meet again further on down the road, Merlin the magician and the van owner set out for Kabul in search of a windshield. In the center of Kandahar, near the Herat gate, I secured a room for the night and had a meal of kebabs and rice, washed down with green tea. I then joined a group of Afghan men and foreign travelers on the roof to smoke some hashish from an immense clay, bubbling water pipe, to watch the sun set. A thermometer protruding from a window in the guest-house lobby registered a temperature of 126 º F. The following morning, I caught a bus for Herat. |
