bUGcATiOn.cOm – The summer blog contest

There is a lot to see and do in Hunza but we had lost a day in Gilgit due to an unscheduled stop to rest and repair the cars. The plan was to make it to Shindur for the polo finals. One of my favourite food items in Hunza is the walnut cake sold at Cafe ‘d Hunza. I could not leave Hunza without buying some. The owner found us waiting outside his cafe when he turned up. He had with him 7 walnut cakes that were still warm from the oven. We bought all. The cakes were rationed and consumed over several evening teas later. We took pictures and packed up to head back for Gilgit where we had left one of our group members. Mujahid had decided to stay back in Gilgit awaiting delivery of a pair of front struts for his super as his front tyres were rubbing against the fenders. The plan was to meet him and continue towards Shindur. Shindur would have been the first place where we planned to spend more than two nights on the entire expedition. We stopped on our way at the Rakaposhi view point which has an ideal setting to enjoy the breathtaking beauty of the 7800 m (25,740 ft.) mountain. there is a nice outdoor restaurant where you can have food while listening to the roar of water that is the snow melt from the Rakaposhi.  The kitchen still employs wood stoves and ours was a large group so it took them more than an hour to bring our food. Meanwhile a TV crew turned up and interviewed us..we were going to have our 15 minutes of fame!!! When the TV reporter asked us about our plans and we told them we are heading towards Shindur he exploded the bombshell on our heads…the road is closed due to a glacial lake burst and a landslide! The first reports according to him was that the road won’t be reopened before a week, at the very least!

We left the Rakaposhi view point for Gilgit and met up with the group member we had left behind. He had meanwhile received the struts for his super and had them installed. We shared the news with him, made a few phone calls and confirmed the news about the land slide and the approximate date of road re-opening. We did not want to risk traveling towards the landslide and risk being stranded. The best option was to alter our plans and head for Rama which would bring us closer to another amazing destination of Deosai.

The stretch of KKH we had to drive on was the same we had experienced just a couple of days back. Groaning and grumbling our faithful VW’s carried on. We got off the KKH at Astore near Chilas and headed back up towards Rama. Rama is a heavily wooded valley with some breathtaking views and an equally beautiful Rama lake. The plan was to camp there and chill. It took us about 4 hours of driving on a thin tape of a road that was stuck to the side of the mountain. The last couple of hours driving was in total darkness with light rain to make the drive a wee bit more treacherous. We lost our way a few times but being ‘proper’ males and living up to our reputation we did not ask for directions. In any case the villagers go to sleep quite early in that part of the world and the dogs that greeted us by their growls and snarls spoke no city language so we had to rely on our ‘instincts’ . We reached our campsite sometime after 9 pm and barely had enuff energy to set up camp on the rain soaked ground right next a fast flowing stream. Hats off to our chef who hurriedly set up the kitchen and busied himself preparing some rice with chicken. It was freezing cold so after we had set up the tents we got a fire going with all the bits we could collect in the nearby woods. We had dinner sitting around the campfire and headed straight to our tents. The rice and chicken tasted  simply out of this world!