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Tuesday, December 10th - Dalbandin to the snake pit, 14,999 km
I am up early and pack my bike for today’s ride east towards Nushki, The Brits get up and make breakfast a bit late, around 9 am, but we are ready to roll except for the shopping trip to the local market to stock up on two days’ supply of food. Kate insists on doing the shopping dressed only in her form-fitting cycling shorts and cycling jersey, a strange and alluring sight to the men around here. It would be illegal in Iran but, technically, it isn’t illegal here – just dangerous. In 20 minutes, there is a crowd of about 50 local men of all ages following her from stall to stall only three metres away. I swear she is denser than a rainforest and more stubborn than crazy glue.
The Dutch boys finally tell Stephen to lead her away before she gets gang raped, something he hadn’t figured out on his own. I wasn’t going to say anything. She has to learn some sense somehow. In Toronto, women have won the legal right to be topless in public, but they all have enough sense not to do it.
So we fill up our bags and roll out of town without a serious incident around 11 am, an hour later than I would have preferred. The first cigarette break is five minutes later, two kilometres beyond the edge of town. Vincent and Stephen crumble some ganja into their tobacco, roll a cigarette and pass it around. I refuse to partake, legitimately because I hate tobacco, but I see no reason why they should obliterate their already scarce supply of common sense just to ride in the desert stoned. We are still four days from Quetta and I really want to make it that far.
But we make it only another 12 km before they stop for another enhanced cigarette break. It is already afternoon when that break ends with 86 km to the half way point still in front of us. By this point the others clearly don’t care, but hopefully we’ll get at least 50 more behind us by nightfall.
Five kilometres after the last break, Kate spots a sand dune beside the road, the first sand dune we have seen so far. It’s not very big, perhaps five metres tall, a hundred metres long and shaped like a boomerang with one arm parallel to the highway. She squeals with delight, as if someone has just bought her a car for Christmas, and she wheels off the road to see it up close. The others, including myself, follow suit, and they decide to take a third break. Just plain cigarettes this time since they are already stoned enough. I feel like throwing up my hands. I resign myself to covering the distance to Nushki in three days instead, although we only have two days’ supply of food.
Vincent is inspired, a few minutes into the break, to climb to the top of the dune. “Hey! Come look everyone!” he shouts. Stephen and Coen scamper up to join him. Kate and I don’t appreciate sand in our cycling shoes so we wait for their reaction. “Kate, come see this,” Stephen calls to her. Now her curiosity is peaked and she struggles up to the top. She screams with delight. “What is it?” I call up. “It’s a magic tree,” Vincent answers. It is the first tree we have seen in the desert, outside of Dalbandin. “Oh, my God! We must sleep here tonight under the tree,” Kate decides for the rest of us. “Oh Christ!” I groan, as I sink down to sit on the ground.
The others think this is a great idea. I suppose we can return to the market in Dalbandin first thing in the morning to get another day’s supply of food, I calculate, trying to think how we can make this work. The group moves around to the other side, away from the road, to set up camp under the willow. I follow. Like the one in Dalbandin, the tree makes the sound of a babbling brook. It is very soothing.
But I am alarmed by the sight of two or three hundred holes in and around the base of the dune that stretch along most of its length. They are of sizes, the smallest the width of a broom handle and the largest wide enough that any one of us could stick a leg in the hole without touching the sides. The closest ones are four metres from the shade of the tree. My heart sinks to new lows. Completely exasperated by my traveling companions, I wheel my bike to the far end of the dune and collapse in frustration. I am there for about 15 minutes before Vincent comes to question me.
"Ken, did you see those holes around the base of the dune?" he asks.
"Yeah," I nod reluctantly.
"Do you think there is anything living in them?"
"It's a sand dune, Vincent. It shifts constantly so the holes would be filled in a day if they weren't occupied."
“Why aren’t there any marks if something is living there?”
“They are night creatures, like all desert animals. The wind this morning has erased their tracks.”
"What would make those holes? Could they be birds."
"No. Birds wouldn't make holes in the ground. They'd make them on a cliff face for protection from snakes and they would all be the same size."
"Do you think they are gophers?"
"No. I don't think gophers live in this part of the world, and besides, there would be mounds of dirt outside each hole and they’d all be the same size."
"Well, do you think they are snakes?"
"Well, snakes come in all sizes and there's no mounds outside their holes. I can't imagine what else they could be."
"Oh,” he ponders this for a few seconds. “What kind of snakes live in Pakistan? Would they be poisonous?"
"Desert snakes are often poisonous. Maybe they are vipers or adders. Those are deadly poisonous."
"But they would have to be HUGE snakes to make holes that large!" he exclaims.
"No doubt."
He ponders this a bit, then says, rather unexpectedly, "Do you think they'd bother us is we sleep here tonight?"
"No,” I laugh. “That's unlikely. They will smell our scent with their tongues and stay away from us. They won’t attack unless we scare them by approaching them."
I have no idea why I have said this. It is insanity. The truth is, I think I am right, even at the terrible risk that I am possibly wrong. If I am right, what place could possibly be safer in the desert. We are hidden from view of the road, so no one will know we are here. If murderous smugglers have seen us, they aren’t likely to get too close with such large snakes around us. Even scorpions and smaller inhabitants of the desert aren’t likely to approach out of fear of being eaten by the snakes.
Even though I am not stoned, the whole trip has become endless and surreal to me, like a product of my sub-conscious. I am behaving like I would in an interesting dream, trying things out that I would never conceive of doing when I am awake. After cooking another dinner of bread and dhal-a-la-pebbles over Stephen’s stove, we spread out our mats and sleeping bags under the tree, in the open air without tents, and crawl in fully-dressed against the night cold. I read the novel I found in a second-hand stall in Dalbandin until the winter sun drops precipitously out of sight. The last words of the day are my caution to the others not to get up to pee in the middle of the night.
PHOTO: Dalbandin near the market
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