Today here, tomorrow inshallah!

The land border crossing between Iran and Pakistan is probably one of the longest and most complicated border crossing. The Balochistan region extends between Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. In the latter it occupies the first ca. 600km going north after the border crossing with Iran. In Pakistan the Balochistan region is self-governed and some groups are claiming independence from Pakistan, so there are some instabilities. To a point that the Balochistan is recognized as a "do-not-travel area" by the German government. The Pakistani government wants the tourists to pass safely through the Balochistan region and to achieve this, every tourist crossing into Pakistan is escorted by armed Levies (the Balochi police) from the Taftan border to Quetta, the last city in the Balochi region. In Quetta tourists are not allowed to wander the city freely, so basically this city is just a one-night stop to obtain the NOC (Non Obligation Certificate) and leave to the northern cities like Lahore and Islamabad.

The 600km between Taftan and Quetta could be driven in one day, but often this is not the case since during these 600km there is a change in escort every 10-100km. Each change of escort means moving all the bags from one van to the other, giving passport details, waiting for unknown reasons. So such trip often takes 2 days with a night in Dalbaldin, a city in between Taftan and Quetta. It is recommended to bring some water and food. Well, we arrived prepared for a 3-day crossing, not knowing that we had a definitely longer adventure in front of us.

We crossed the border on Friday and we were immediately brought at the police station in Taftan: "we leave tomorrow, one day to Quetta!" They tell us. With us a couple of French bikers, Fanny and Mehdi, a British motorbiker, Roy, and Viktor, an Hungarian extreme-sports-athlete preparing his next mission to the Karakoram. The room is better than I expected: a floor with carpet, two armchairs and a sofa all completely crashed and covered in dust. Toilet with shower. We spend a quiet night and we leave the morning after. We change 4 escorts, every time the track is different so we have to play a new tetris game trying to fit bags, bikes and people. It is unclear if we can go all the way to Quetta because the massive rain of the last days has caused flooding which resulted into rivers of water crossing the only (and bumpy) main road. At the third escort it seems that we can make it in one day, so we pass Dalbaldin and keep going north. Until we reach a flood crossing the road. Our levies try to pass it but it is too deep and the stream too strong. We have to stop here. Rachsart (one of our levies) says that we will go back to his police station: "it is big with 4 rooms, with toilet and shower!" He says. The view when we arrive is terrifying. A simply dirty place would have been extra comfort. I don't know what was more scary between the massive dirt, the amount of huge spiders, the condition of the toilets (with included dead birds and wasps nest just outside), the used needles and syringes (drugs use is a problem is Pakistan). But well, we have no other choice and we take it with the best attitude. The levies are very nice, we play pull-ups competition together, they prepare dinner, we eat together and afterwards we sing songs (they are definitely better singers than us!). Few minutes after we go to bed they wake us up: the flood has arrived in the station! We have to move to the roof. We can spend a night outside under the stars (and under some rain since Peter and I have no tent but we are provided with a net against mosquitos)! When we wake up the water level (that reached far above the floor during the night) is decreasing, so after a breakfast-on-the-roof we can start transporting our bags and bikes towards the road: A walk into muddy slimy brown water up to the knees. At least we can leave for Quetta.

After a couple of more changes we stop at another police station, they tell us that we have to wait a couple of hours. When the sunset comes it is however clear that we would spend the night there. At least the room is clean! No comments about the toilets (that are in a building few meters away from the main building) ... we are 6 in one room, it feels like a teenager bootcamp. We all sleep on the floor in a tetris of legs and heads. One night becomes two nights that become three nights ... we get comfortable and spend our time doing exercises, yoga, games with the levies, reading, and writing diaries. We cook regularly, sometimes we get food prepared by the levies. Rice and potatoes one day, rice and potatoes the other day, and for a change potatoes and rice the next day. All interspersed by an unbelievable amount of cookies (the only thing sold at the 'shop' on the other side of the road). At day 3 we also start to make our laundry, and the fence around the mosque of the station is decorated with t-shirts, underwear, and shorts. The levies make language courses for us. We spend some relaxed time observing the traffic passing by: impressively overloaded and nicely coloured trucks, motorbikes with up to 5 people, family vans. Once a bus passed by carrying inside and on the roof only goats! A motorbike passed with two men sitting on it and between the two a goat. When we saw a small truck carrying watermelons we ran and stopped it: we haven't had any fruit in days!!

The language barrier is huge however, so it is difficult to communicate and understand what is happening with the road. "Today? Quetta?" we keep asking "in 2 hours" is the usual answer. The last day we asked again "Today?" The answer was clear: "Here!". "Tomorrow?" we asked then, and the answer was "inshallah!" (That means 'if God wants'). Well, Allah has been looking down because the day after we could finally leave!! Only 100km left to Quetta, it took us the entire day with trips split in 9 changes (one trip happened in a goat truck, but no goat with us).

In Quetta we can finally enjoy a clean toilet, a bed, and some privacy (showers are still cold however)!! We feel like we made it, now we just need to get the NOC the day after so that we can leave for Lahore/Islamabad. The morning after we get up early, pack, have breakfast and wait for the arrival of the police that must escort us to the NOC office. In the mean time our group got bigger: two motorbikers from Germany (Thilo and Mark), Toby, a biker still from Germany, and a Swiss motorbiker (Pascal). Full of hope we enter the NOC office. Unfortunately the roads have been flooded because of heavy rain during the night, so they cannot issue us the NOC and we cannot leave. Today we stay here. We ask about tomorrow ... "inshallah!" they answer!

The friendliest person: all the Levies!

Food: rice and potatoes

Music: balochistan balojaani by Anwar Raheem (on spotify)

Highlights of the trip: one of the local at the second police station got interested in the guys practicing sports and built a gym for them: a fine selection of stones of different size and weight for training deadlift, shotput, and overhead press.

Lowlights of the trip: This year floods in Pakistan have cause the death of more than 1000 people, and millions have lost their houses. It has been the worst flood in the country's history and on 25 August Pakistan declared a state of emergency. The floods were not cause by the usual monsoon rain, but rather by heavier, and later in the season than usual monsoon rain combined to melting glaciers that followed the sever heat wave that hit also the entire Europe. All of this is linked to climate change.