September 3: I’m packed and ready to head back tomorrow. My flight schedule forces me to overnight in London, so luckily Roland Hunter (themountaincompany.co.uk) left here today, so I’ll crash at his place tomorrow night. Then back home on the 5th.
I did visit the Hunza region for a few days. At this point I’m not going to bore you with details, as we just drove some, hiked some, ate a bunch, did some shopping, then came back. As I wrote earlier, I did get sick, but that seems to have passed.
So far I haven’t done much in Islamabad except lie in my air-con hotel room and watch TV. After 3 months, I’m at the stage where I’m rather tired of the incessant inefficiency of trying to do anything here. Just getting a simple cup of tea can take 30 minutes in a restaurant. Only when locals are driving does time seem to be short. So if I just watch TV, there is no struggle involved.
Ramazan started yesterday. This is a month-long period of daytime fasting for Muslims. For some reason, the English-speaking press calls it Ramadan (is that Arabic?). So there are few places open to each during daylight. Luckily the hotel will serve food, but the usual buffets are not set up until late at night.
I haven’t spent any time to speak of looking at the coverage of the K2 tragedies this summer. I’ll dive into that when I get back to fill in the blanks in my knowledge of the events.
I’m looking forward to seeing y’all soon.
Mike