I miss breakfast in the morning as it seems the Pakistanis can’t agree what time zone they are in.
There is a tense atmosphere amongst us truckies. There is talk of a meeting tonight to discuss whether we follow the planned itinerary, which includes the ‘wild west’ Peshawar, more recently home of the Taliban in Pakistan, or just go to Lahore and out of Pakistan as quickly as possible. From my point of view, I am not comfortable with going to places where we have to be guarded by gunmen. It’s frustrating that we rely only on what we are told at checkpoints, ignoring any external sources of information, like newspapers for instance! I have been reading over the past couple of years of numerous suicide bombings occurring in places that we are planning to go to, especially Peshawar.
We depart to Quetta with one gunman in the cab with James/JC and another in the passenger cabin. Along the way, we spot lots of wild camels and trucks decorated with elaborate illustrations with vibrant colours, though the base colour is almost always green.
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| A Pakistani truck, comparatively restrained believe it or not...(D Jones) |
We drive nine and a half hours to Quetta, which was just 350km due to frequent guard changes and bad roads. It is dark when we arrive in Quetta, which may or may not have been a good thing.
There is now a regular group of people who take upgrades whenever possible, so there is plenty of room for the tent dwellers such as myself on the flat and lush grass in the hotel courtyard at the Hotel Bloomstar. It seems like luxury. The hotel gate is locked up in the evening, though the truck is parked opposite the hotel and attracting a lot of attention.
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| Relaxing in the hotel courtyard |
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