Five full days of travel and we are now only a day away from Skardu. It’s midnight, but I’m wide awake; jet lag is real…
Day 1, Friday, 7/2: The trip kicked off with a 5 AM flight from Denver to LAX, followed by a 12 hour layover in LAX. Once in LAX, I promptly left my backpack in the bus that transferred us between terminals. 20 seconds off the bus, I realized my ridiculous mistake; unfortunately, the bus was out of sight by then. I took off in a dead sprint after the bus while James stayed with our luggage. Terminal 3. Terminal 4. Terminal 5 – still no bus. Finally, I rounded a corner to terminal 6 and saw the bus. I ran up to the bus, banged on the side, jumped in, grabbed my bag and was out as the door was closing. I tracked the distance walking back, and by my rough estimation, I think I ran a 5:30 mile – Finally all this running is good for something…
I wrapped up my last day of work for 6 weeks from the airport terminal. It involved sending a lot of emails informing key contacts I would be “out of the office” for the next 6 weeks with no access to internet, and funneling all correspondence to my boss (thanks Pete :/ ). I’ve spent the last two and a half years trying to travel, climb, ski, run, bike, etc. as much as possible on long weekends, flexed schedules, evenings, early mornings, and everything else in between. It felt very weird to close the laptop and know I would not have any work responsibilities for a month and a half. I am super grateful to work for a company that allows me to take off for such an extended amount of time: R-V Industries Link – It may be a blue-collar metal fabrication company, but they are more flexible and supportive than any flashy tech company out there, or at least I think so.
Friday PM, we flew out on Qatar Airways to Dubai with a layover in Doha. Randomly, Ben - a friend of James, was on the first leg of our flight and we spent our 6-hour layover in Doha enjoying the open bar at in the Qatar lounge at strange hours of the morning, day, night? Honestly, I don’t even know what time it was, wine is good at any hour.
Day 2, Saturday, 7/3: A strange day filled with massive time change, flying, a layover – honestly at some point I had no idea what day it was, if it was morning or evening, if the next meal served on the plane would be breakfast of dinner… so I did the only logical thing left: ordered endless Mimosas.
Day 3, Sunday, 7/4: We landed in Dubai at 2 AM. Due to our canceled flight debacle a few days before, we had booked a sperate flight from Dubai to Islamabad, Pakistan, so we now had 36 hours in Dubai. I looked at the cheapest hotels near the airport and found a nice one for $40 (win!). We took a taxi there and were told that they would store our luggage for us, but we could not check into our room until 2 PM unless we wanted to pay for an extra night. Of course we opted against that, so we spent 9 long hours sitting in the hotel lobby, dozing off, completely delirious with sleep. Finally, at 11 AM, the hotel attendant came over and told us we could check in early. They were likely just tired off two dirtbags taking over their very nice lobby. Either way, we got the room early and a bed never felt so good.
That evening we met up with Jesse, an old high school friend that was living in Abu Dhabi, an hour and a half drive from Dubai. He drove up and met us for dinner. It is always fun and interesting the random friends and acquaintances you come across when travelling.
Day 4, Monday, 7/5: This was the day we were waiting (and stressing) for. I felt somewhat confident our flight was a go into Pakistan, but this is what was canceled last time. We arrived at the airport nice and early, waited for the gate to open, and stood in line for an hour waiting to check our bags in. We were the only gringos in the line – always a good sign that you are headed somewhere interesting.
Our check in process went well, as all our paperwork was in line and our negative PCR test from LA was just so within the 72-hour window (that’s another story that won’t live here…). Unfortunately, I missed that the luggage allowance was 20kg per bag for this flight, down from the typical 23 kg, so we moved all sorts of gear around and had a hefty fee for our oversized and now very overweight 5th bag: Damn.
With our bags checked, we moved through security with no issues. There was likely nothing to really be worried about, but only a few days earlier, when our original flights were canceled, we thought we would not be able to make it to Pakistan, so this felt like a huge relief and blessing.
One 3-hour flight later we landed in Islamabad late in the evening and were met by the guide/logistics agency we were working with to coordinate this entire trip – Adventure Tours Pakistan (ATP). They drove us to a nearby hotel where we would be met early the next morning by a driver who would take us on the two-day journey to Skardu. Unfortunately, ATP had originally lined up this leg as a cheap domestic flight, but when our original flight was canceled, they were unable to re-book the domestic flight due to availability. Now we had a two-day drive, in place of a two-hour flight; oh well, at least we would get a good chance to see the countryside.
Day 5, Tuesday, 7/6: 6 AM wakeup call. Then 13 hours of sitting in a small car, buzzing around large busses, small motorcycle, and everything in between (and I mean everything), we made it to our hotel in Chilas. Tomorrow, we drive another full day before arriving in Skardu. That is where I feel that the real expedition begins. It’s incredible how long it can take to travel to these more remote areas, even in the 21st century.
