AFGHANISTAN: from love to hate ... TWO WEEKS OF MOUNTAIN TRANSITION (continued, ch.10), where I took a very good solution for all your travel. Realizing that the next day we waited a long way to Sarhad, that is 8-10-hour marathon of descents and ascents on the mountain slopes, I decided to open one of two packages of pasta, which I bought at Bishkek, and eat them together last stocks of tomato paste. - Today - pasta - I said to Said. - Nooo, neeeeet, bread, rice, sour, salty tea! - "He protested. - Bread, salted tea, yogurt, I am a very big problem - finally, I admitted. - I have no pasta, no Sarhad. This dialogue between us was repeated several times until Sayid did not understand that I will not give up, then he agreed to start a fire to cook pasta. We cooked the entire package, and my hunger was much stronger than my shame, I demonstrated all of its western selfishness, eating almost half. I ate until he got sick stomach just could not stop. Vahantsy never would imagine this is not allowed, well, if still it happened, it would be very ashamed. Maybe they looked down on me for this my behavior, or perhaps, Said explained my behavior because I was weaker than them, and I needed food. In any case, I reached a point where I do it already anyway, just to get to the Sarhad. Sang Navishta in good weather, dinner was not particularly tasty, but rich aroma after nearly two weeks stay on a diet of Afghan Pamir made me imagine what you felt the first Europeans discovered the chili pepper, nutmeg and other spices of the East Indies. Said took the second half of the pasta and shared it with two men from the village. He ate a few spoonfuls before the men noticed the tomato paste and put it in a bowl and mix with pasta. Said still treated her with suspicion and after this maneuver ate only bread. After spending the night in tents, which was a piece of fabric stretched over some sticks, he refused to pasta without tomato paste, which I cooked in the morning, saying: "Bread is very very good!" Then there was a long drive, heavy, but not very much. We overcame a mountain after another, and each descent from the next hill brings us to another river, which crosses another valley. The last portion of pasta we cooked in Shauro. This time Sayid offered me a portion of three times their own, despite the fact that his donkey had problems with his heart and now my 15-pound backpack had to carry himself. "I have no problem going Sarhad", - he explained. - "You're very, very big problem!" One of the dealers he was right, I'm very, very big problem: I have suffered from leg strength is almost not there, two hours after I ate the pasta, I was already dying of hunger and, moreover, corn chose the latter, the most difficult day hike to appear on both my legs. In the end, at a rate of 90-year-old, I was able to overcome the last hill and started a 2-hour descent to the Sarhad, where almost immediately upon arrival I had a fabulous spiritual transformation. The previous few days, I only did what he thought and dreamed about how I would go with the Pamirs, but now suddenly my attitude changed, and appeared in my questions: Can I just leave? Really, I actually spent two weeks in this world, these people may have just begun to understand their incomprehensibly heavy and calm way of life? Despite the feeling of performing a feat that ran through me, my desire to return to Tajikistan has not died down one iota, though, maybe it is a bit weakened by the fact that now I was closer to his goal. In the morning when I came in Sarhad, I climbed the hill and explored the surrounding area for vehicles. To my great joy, I saw a car just a few kilometers to the west. I went in that direction, asking the way, if anyone knows its owner, and found that the owners of the car a few. All were members of the NGO "The Aga Khan Foundation. They drank salted tea and ate bread in a small clay hut. In the Sarhad they gave lectures to the local population about what to do in case of natural disasters. One of them somehow spoke in English and was happy to practice. He was my same age. Also, he happily agreed to take me with him the next day. Unapproachable beauty of Pamir took us two days, but in the end, we got to Ishkashim, who was so close to Tajikistan, I could see the concrete structures, SUVs, and telephone poles, towering on a cliff on the other bank. Mohammed Ali, one of the members of the NGO, invited me to visit and fed into my last week in Afghanistan. His brother, well spoken in English and graduated from the University of Kabul, has helped me to understand what living in Afghanistan. - What most Afghans think about the Taliban? - I asked. - They're almost not human beings like animals - he said. - And about Russian? - Well, some time ago, we, of course, they were hated because of the invasion. But now, people at least know that the Russian are building bridges and hospitals. Americans even do not, it is interesting just to fight and destroy the Taliban. - So who's worse: the Taliban or the Americans? - Yes they are one and the same. Long years of war, repeated foreign intervention and despotic rulers seriously impeded the development of Afghanistan, making the lives of ordinary people is incredibly challenging, but at the same time thereby providing tourists like me the opportunity to see what would look like Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, without industrialization and development, which they received by the USSR. Despite the fact that it was one of the most interesting of my travel, it also proved to be one of the most difficult and exhausting. For the next week I had to spend in a hotel room in Tajikistan. I only did what he ate, slept and read. This trip was so difficult that at first I was going to forever put an end to adventure and spend the next vacation on some tropical beach, for example, on the Hawaiian island of Maui. Now, when I came to myself, my confidence waned a bit. Let's see what will happen next year. Start material:
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