A cave on Shandur Pass

Walking on the level is relatively easy and I make good time, passing along the length of the lake. In the distance I can see two army huts used by the Chitral Guides standing by the famous Shandur Pass polo ground. It is the highest polo ground in the world and is used each year to stage a polo match between Chitral and Gilgit.

I decide to visit the soldiers camped in the hut, on the very good chance that they may offer me a cup of tea. When I get there, the open hut is deserted, with only a smouldering fire providing evidence that they have been here today. A pot of reed roots gathered from the lake simmers on the embers, looking most unappetising. The other hut is locked and seems to be empty.

I brew up a cup of coffee and a plate of steaming porridge and sit back to wait for their return. As I rest, lethargy sets in and I doze for a while. It is tempting to relax and think of the long walk ahead some other time. Maybe the soldiers will let me sleep in one of the huts. It would be nice to watch the sun rising over the pass. At four, the door of the other hut opens and two bleary-eyed soldiers appear.

The sergeant is not pleased to see me and makes it clear that unless I pay him a substantial bribe, I will have to leave.

“This not tourist camp. This is Army camp,” he blusters and shambles off for a shit. Perhaps he is right, but does he have to be so unpleasant?

“You are a little shit,” I mutter as he squats down by the lake.

As I repack my bag, the private offers me a cup of tea from a thermos flask. I give him a packet of porridge oats in return, which he hides from the sergeant. There is something about his manner that makes me wonder what the two men were doing in bed together in the middle of the afternoon. The sergeant really is an unpleasant little man and is clearly not happy for me to be here.

When he comes back from his ablutions, he repeats his demand for money. His tone makes me nervous and just a little angry.

Without too much thought, I storm off down the mountain. An hour later, I begin to calm down and the reality of my situation starts to dawn on me. I am at least three or four hours from the nearest village and there is less than one hour of daylight remaining. I keep walking, somehow convinced that I will be all right and that something will turn up. If all else fails, there are enough big boulders under which I could shelter. The clouds sink lower and a fine drizzle envelops the world. I keep walking. This must be either a moment of mountain madness or a moment of great faith

Ten minutes later I round a corner and meet a man standing on the track. He stares at me in astonishment. As I approach him, three other men appear and watch me draw nearer. They are almost as surprised to see me, as I am to see them as we are both at least four hours from the nearest village and already light is beginning to fail.

After a brief discussion in broken Urdu, they convince me to stay with them. It turns out that they are driving a herd of donkeys and cattle from Laspur over Shandur Pass to the village of Teru on the other side. Their animals are well hidden and penned inside a drystone wall enclosure. This is a regular stopping off point. The oldest herder leads me by the hand into a narrow slit in the mountainside that I would have never have noticed without his help and into a cave that has been hollowed out under a boulder the size of a house. After my experience with the sergeant, many thoughts cross my mind as I am bundled through the entrance, most of which are not very palatable.

The roof is low and we have to walk in a crouched position. As my eyes adjust to the gloom, I make out a pot of rice simmering over a fire in one corner near the entrance. Elsewhere, their bags and blankets are scattered across on the cave floor. With certain amount of trepidation, I squat in an empty corner and begin to wonder if they are likely to slit my throat and rob me. They make a rough-looking crowd. But their first step is to offer me hot tea and some unleavened bread. Then they begin trying to find out what on earth I am doing alone on the side of a mountain, so late in the day. Seated on their best blanket and warmed by a blazing fire, I try my best to answer their questions. The lack of a common language makes conversation less than easy. After a while, they give up and continue with their preparations for the night.

They are all fasting and keep a close eye on the time as sunset approaches. Outside, the animals are restless and need constant attention. When the animals are finally settled, the men all crowd back into the cave and sit watching the minutes pass until the sun is officially set.

The oldest of the men sits under an umbrella at the mouth of the cave, watching his digital watch with great care. Sheets of rain start to swirl in through the cave opening and the umbrella tosses and turns with a life of its own. But the old man keeps his eyes glued on the glowing digits on his wrist.

The other three harangue him about the so-called accuracy of his digital watch, but he is resolute and until he is sure that the sun has set, he lets no one near the food

When at last, he declares that the sun has set, feasting begins. The rice is heated up and a large pot of tea brewed. In return for my warm reception, I offer them the last of my sugar, a bag of green tea and a packet of mixed spices from the bazaar in Chitral.

This is a mistake. For the remainder of my stay, I strive and fail to convince the cook that I do not drink only green tea and no matter what the circumstance, I did not want mixed spices added to my tea. Every time I try to explain that the green tea and spices are a gift, I think that the message has been understood. But shortly afterwards the cook does something with either the green tea or the spices that showed me that he had no idea what I was saying.

Only one of them speaks any Urdu and his accent is so thick that I can barely understand anything he says. He is the cook, the youngest of the group and has decided to teach me to speak his local dialect. My nightmare lesson in Chitrali – or whatever language it is – begins with him asking me to repeat the names of objects in the cave. If I pronounce the word wrongly or forget, he repeats the word louder or more quickly. With his face close to mine, he screams each word into my ear and covers me with his spittle.

But for the digital watches and the umbrella erected to stop the worst of the rain blowing into the cave, I could have been forgiven for thinking that I had tumbled into a Neolithic homestead. As the temperature drops steadily, more fuel is piled on to the fire, filling the air with acrid, choking smoke. Any heat that is produced by the fire escapes through the cave entrance and is replaced by icy draughts of mountain air. The lesson continues and my failure to learn quickly enough is irritating my instructor to the point of distraction. With eyes and nose streaming because of the fumes, I try hard to please my tormentor and wonder how much longer he will keep up this misery.

An age later, he gives up and at last, we prepare for sleep. I am given a blanket but not allowed to use it to insulate myself from the cold, damp cave floor. Instead, it is placed on top of me. Freezing rainwater soon drips down from the roof of the cave, through the blanket and down the small of my back. The shivering soon starts and I feel like shit.

Just as I nearly get to sleep, a sudden scream fractures the still of the night and I sit up with a start to see the herders scrambling into the night through the narrow cave entrance. A predator has spooked the animals – perhaps a wandering snow leopard – and the men can be heard shouting to try to scare it way. Peace finally returns and I spend what is left of the night shivering under the blanket, with the chill of the freezing ground eating into my side.

Relief comes at three in the morning as the herders begin to stir and get breakfast underway. Once again, the fire is stoked up and once again the cave fills with choking smoke. The back of my throat and my eyes feel raw and my nose runs uncontrollably. I would have preferred tear gas.

My tormentor brews a pot of tea and re-heats last night’s rice until it burns on the bottom of the pan. The eating cloth is spread out again and we eat in silence. As the food is cleared away, my torment enters its second stage. He speaks to me in unintelligible Urdu, but his intentions are very clear.

“You have had a good sleep? Now we will go over last night’s lesson.”

With my head muzzy from lack of sleep, the altitude, the cold and the exertions of travel, my brain is in no fit state to learn, but he is relentless and hammers me on every word. We can not move to the next word until I have managed to produce a reasonable pronunciation. For the best part of half an hour, he screams at me, laughing like a madman at my many mistakes.

In revenge, I do the same to him and get him to repeat the names of objects in the cave in French. It is a futile exercise, but makes me feel a little better. Eventually, he leaves me alone to clear away the cooking area.

Aching with the cold and exhaustion, I manage to crawl close enough to the fire to feel its magic working into my bones and fall asleep against a pile of brushwood.

In their world, I am out of place and they treat me like a moron to be looked after but also to be played with. In some ways, they are right – I can’t speak their language at all and can only speak as much Urdu as a rather stupid two-year old. Also, I had managed to get myself stuck on the wrong side of a mountain on a very cold and wet night.

When the young cook finds my plastic sugar container, he asks if he may keep it – so I give it to him. He struggles for a few minutes to close it and is red faced when I offer to take it off him and click the lid back in place with a single motion of my thumb. He quickly hides the container in his bag, trying to hide his embarrassment.

Outside the cave, the sun is shining and the sky is clear. I prepare to leave them and take a group photograph. When the posing is over, the men all want to look at my camera but are too clumsy to operate the zoom lens without my help. They scan the mountains and smile as the viewfinder brings distant objects a little closer. The young cook is still sulking and hangs back. After I replace the lens cap, he comes forward and snatches the camera out of my hand. For a few fruitless minutes, he tries to see what his friends had been seeing and in the end returns the camera without a word. When I show him how to take off the lens cap and work the zoom lens, his sullen glower is finally replaced by a smile. With a sweeping gesture, he looks out down the valley and is transfixed. When at last he gives the camera back to me, we are friends and he shakes my hand.

In the end, we all come to realise that we come from different worlds and make our peace. When I leave at six, my rescuers stop work for a moment to bid me farewell. With a mixture of relief and sadness, I leave them with their animals and set off down the mountain.