We‘re moving on our bikes from one check point to another, escorted by armed men on pick-ups. For last few weeks I’ve been travelling together with Armin from Switzerland and Salome from Georgia. We met in Iran and are heading from Rimdan border terminal towards Karachi, determined to cycle the whole way of around 700 km.
I am dreaming army and police buildings will become hostels and guest houses one day in the future. Sometimes I think we’ve arrived to an alternative bar, shaking hands with long-haired men instead of uniform wearing shalwar kameez, comfortable traditional costume.
Then a navy drone is passing over our heads in the night and we hear fireshots. Flies land on our roti bread and honey. We are not allowed to see Ormara, a fishermen village, by ourselves. Policeman with a riffle over his shoulder is following us to bazaar, only to buy necessary food.
He is sitting in front of our hotel door, chewing and spitting tobacco through his brown teeth, while we try to negotiate our way out to the streets again. To wander without a purpose.
No. He insists he needs to inform the officer, but there is no signal in the country for a whole day because of the election. When I’m cutting vegetables, he is helpfully stirring onion in the pan.
We decide to just walk out through the door as a free people: three travelers, four shadows. Locals stare at us intensely and with no restraint. I can see heads of hairdresser and his customer turning to us at once.
Everyday we change around five escort teams. We have to move our luggage from one car to another, make a photo with new faces. I step back, accidentally a gun is pointing at me.
Luckily we took enough food and water with us for several days. In rare mini markets we can get mostly biscuits and bottles of water.
Balochistan is vast and remote area, with breathtaking and everchanging rocky landscapes in the Makran Coast and Hingol National Park. Strong feelings of seeing planet Earth at its primal and roughest overhelm me, I can imagine the land before any life has emerged.
Road is mostly quiet and lone trucks are beautifully decorated. Only buses speed up uncomfortably fast.
We sleep and cook at the police stations, they provide us rooms. Sometimes that means just dirty floor in the office. Due to poor hygiene and mosquitos we prefer to sleep in our tents.
But we have to fight for this right and at the same time not offend our hosts as they are worried for our safety. Tiger will come in the night, the officer says while we’re putting up tents behind the barracks refusing to sleep in the container without a door.
In the morning a rickshaw stops next to our camping ground. Surprisingly, a family from Poland is travelling from Lahore in their own vehicle, colorfully decorated by local handcrafters. They mostly manage to hide and avoid police company this way. Keep going and inspiring!
Day 8, side trip and first time without an escort: we are visiting Chandragup mud volcanoes, Volcanoes of the Moon, pedalling offroad through the cracking desert.
Armin is cycling barefoot and without a shirt from the top. We build a kitchen service and fruits out of gray clay at the crater edge, next to the incenses left by Hindu pilgrims, for our generous gods to eat. I juggle mud. Volcanoes respond bubbling. Freedom feels like crazyness!
And we’re learning: silently without asking we take all the bags up the ladder to the rooftop of police station and set up tents. There’s a short argue later but when they see our equipment, they agree. Always there’s a curious man watching how we‘re cooking, even on the rooftop. Idea about private space is totally different here.
Policemen are exceptionally friendly and polite, often inviting us for a tea or rice with fish. There’s a strange glow sometimes in their eyes, chewing plenties of tobacco, and their English skills differ, consequently their answers (yes, yes) must not be taken for granted. I wonder what is the difference between protection and help. You don’t need a gun for the later, don’t you? It is great they transport our luggage and sometimes provide us even a wind shadow behind the jeep to ride faster towards Karachi.
We reach it on the day 10. Early morning, before the sunrise, alarm rings. We pack silently and push bicycles in the yard of police station. Wait two minutes for the escort, they say. After two minutes we start to pedal, somebody is running and shouting after us. We escaped.
Soon a policeman on motorbike is driving behind us, seriously nodding. Is he still wearing pijamas? In the dense traffic we wave good-bye, entering colorful, chaotic and polluted megapolis on our own, with smiles hidden under the face masks.
Text & photo by Uroš; additional photo by Armin, Salome & policemen.