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Thursday, December 12th - trading post to Nushki, 15,182 km
This is the day we push on to the city of Nushki. From there it will be a two-day ride to reach the capital of Baluchistan, Quetta. It will be about 65 km, according to our maps. Nushki has about 70,000 people, by far the biggest town we've been in since Zahedan.
There is a bit of a breeze today, more of a tailwind than anything else. The valley is still flat though the road is still following the base of a small mountain range on the south side so at times there are small rises and falls. Kate still is acting like a bitch towards me, as usual, but we get along cycling as a group as long as we are separated. Vincent and I are staying close to Coen today, who seems to be struggling in spite of the relatively easy terrain. His system is fighting something.
We meet two other travelers today, the first being a Slovenian man who has been walking around world for world peace. When I was in Zahedan, I heard him being interviewed on BBC radio. The Iranian government had given him an extended visa, and he had been interviewed several times along his route through the country. He had just entered Pakistan at the time of his interview and was headed for Quetta. I expected to see him somewhere along the way. We come across him an hour or so after leaving the trading post. He is draped in a sandwich board and carrying a placard plastered with messages for world peace in bad English. He stops as the Dutch boys and I ride up to greet him. "Dobra dan!" I salute him, which means 'good day'. He is shocked to be greeted in Slovenian. We have a good chat for several minutes. He tells us that he too has been 'stoned' by Baluch children when entering towns.
We continue on towards Nushki. The valley starts to drop as we get near. Just as it does we meet Carlos, a Spaniard cycling solo. We greet him and chat briefly, and then he joins us for the last half hour into Nushki. We seek out the Boys & Girls Club in Nushki, a sprawling industrial town. Carlos, Vincent, Coen and I share a dorm room. Kate and Stephen take a room as a married couple, even though the management is suspicious.
"I think they are not really married," the manager whispers to me after they have gone to their room. "Why do you say that?" I ask, knowing that they are not. "They are wearing rings."
"That means nothing," he says. "They have different last names."
Perhaps I should have told him the truth, but I doubt that would have caused them to stop cycling with us. Instead, I reflexively try to protect them. I tell the manager, "A woman no longer has to change her last name when she marries in the West. That is becoming more common."
I am excited about meeting Carlos though. He's in his late 20s, like Coen and Vincent. He comes from Salamanca in western Spain. His dark Spanish eyes are full of care and compassion. He listens to me intently when he asks me a question, but I let him do the talking because his story is interesting. He has been cycling alone from Spain and has been in Iran for several weeks. From Mashhad, he cycled south into the vast desert in eastern Iran, Dasht-e Kavir, because he loves deserts and has long wanted to do this. He was nowhere near a major centre when his visitor visa expired.
A couple weeks later, he happened across a secret military establishment in a forbidden zone near the Afghani border. He was arrested and questioned for hours in backrooms as to why he was in a forbidden region without a valid visa, the same questions over and over to break him down. He loves Iran so he kept explaining why he loves Iran and deserts and about the beauty he found there. Iranians are modest people who shun the thought of fishing for compliments, so his answers over time proved to be as torturous to his inquisitors as their questions were to him. They finally threw their hands up, exasperated, and screamed at him for being so stupid. They renewed his visa and pointed in the direction of Mirjaweh, and told him he would be arrested if he didn't show up there within three days.
He made it to the border and through this desert on his own, to the point where we met him. I told him my story too, about my mishaps in Esfahan and our night in the snake pit. We are interrupted by Coen who has just returned from the washrooms with a grey pallour after being sick. Vincent is with him. Being tall, he usually chooses the upper bunks in dorms, but he cannot make it. He staggers and three of us catch him to prevent his falls. He is clearly disoriented and feverish. It is while frightening. Vincent and Stephen take him in a taxi to the local hospital.
Carlos and I sit in our dorm room trying to carry on from where we left off, but we are worried about Coen. We talk more to comfort each other than to entertain. It's strange how I can fall into a comfortable friendship with complete trust almost instantly with Carlos, feeling like I can trust him completely, while as clearly and intensely disliking another like Kate at first sight. I like to think it is intuitive, not just illusions and prejudices.
Vincent and Stephen come back without Coen, bearing bad news. Coen has acquired amoebic dysentery and is very ill with a high fever. The doctor at the clinic says he will be OK but he needs to stay at the clinic for observation for at least a week. Vincent, of course, will not abandon him like he did me when I fell sick in Esfahan. "Well, we can't wait that long," Kate announces, which means Stephen is going with her. "There's no need for anyone else to stay behind," Vincent tells us. Carlos is leaving with them so I reluctantly agree to go with them, though I probably wouldn't have if Carlos was not joining us.
We have 150 km to cover to get to Quetta, our destination. I will wait for the Dutch boys there, regardless of what the others decide to do, if we don't kill each other over the next two days.
PHOTO 1: camels on the way to Nushki
PHOTO 2: Carlos and his bike of many travels
PHOTO 3: two curious boys in Nushki
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