Afghanistan & Egypt in the time of the plague

[netllama]

Continuing a periodic, ongoing series of trips to the world's deserts, I recently returned from a three week trip to Afghanistan (yes, srsly) and Egypt. To be honest, this trip was originally planned back in late 2019, when COVID19 was not even a thing. The fact that it happened at all is something of a minor miracle. It required entering four different countries (and four negative COVID19 tests), on top of some tricky logistics to pull off. There were a total of 12 different flights during the 3 weeks that ths trip comprised. 

To put it mildly, Afghiantian is a fascinating and complex place.  Whatever you know about the country is, at best, only part of the full story.  Egypt is more myth than fact for most people, and is also a complicated place.  This trip involved driving through Taliban controlled territory, a vist to an emergency clinic in Cairo, and a real life version of Mad Max Fury Road.  There was also a ton of amazing food, spectacular scenery, and religious & historical sites that are hundreds or thousand of years old.

But enough of my rambling, you're prolly here for the photos, right?  Photos below are tagged by country (EG=Egypt, AF=Afghanistan):

Panjshir Valley (AF)

Valley of the Kings, Luxor (EG)

Heading off to school (AF) 

Philae Temple, Aswan (EG)

Qait Bay Citadel, Alexandria (EG)

Blue Mosque, Mazar-i-Shariff (AG)

Dendara Temple, Luxor (EG)

Red Pyramid, Duhshara (EG)

Rest stop, Panjshir Valley (AF)

Kabul at dusk (AF)

Hatshepsut (EG)

Step pyramid, Saqarra (EG)

Red pyramid, Duhshara (EG)

Goats (AF)

No roads (AF)

Trucker strike (AF)

Temple grounds, Aswan (EG)

Bridge (AF)

Abu Simbel (EG)

3500 meters up enroute to Kabul (AF)

Giza pyramids (EG)


Nothing that I've done on this trip is in any way impossible or special if you wanted to do it too. Yes, it requires money, and the effort required to deal with trip logistics, but beyond that its not difficult for anyone to accomplish, if they were interested.  My point is the world is a big, fascinating place.  Death valley is definitely a spectacular place, but there are many other parts of the world that are equally amazing.

The photos above are merely a sample of the 600+ that I took during the trip.  You can see the rest here.

I'm happy to answer questions about any part of the trip.

[MojaveGeek]

Very cool stuff. I see in your photos that you got to watch a Buzkashi game. Quite the sport, no?

What's the deal with the "Truckers strike" photo in the sand and haze? I do like those traditionally painted old wooden bed trucks!

[netllama]

Very cool stuff. I see in your photos that you got to watch a Buzkashi game. Quite the sport, no?

What's the deal with the "Truckers strike" photo in the sand and haze? I do like those traditionally painted old wooden bed trucks!

The Buzkashi game (in Mazar-i-shariff) was fun for a bit, but got boring after a while. Its rather chaotic, and most of the time, there were 30-50 men on horseback in a tight cluster fighting over the goat carcass for minutes. From a distance, it didn't look like much was happening. We stayed for about 90 minutes, then decided to leave. It was actually far more interesting watching all the food vendors (most of which were children under age 10) wandering about. Women donn't typically particpate or attend, so my wife was quite the attraction. There were kids gawking at the blonde woman in the stands.

The truckers strike was completely insane. We were driving on a road that was about an hour's drive south of the Uzbek border. Lots of trucks import goods overland from Uzbekistan (or vice versa), but they have to pay taxes on whatever they are importing. That's all fine & good, except both the Afghani govt *and* the Taliban setup road checkpoints where they charge the taxes, and the truckers were sick of paying double (or sometimes triple) taxes, so they decided to park and block the road in protest. At first, it was trucks on the shoulder. Then trucks on both shoulders. Then trucks blocking one lane/direction. Then trucks sort of blocking both directions, with a very narrow lane down the center of the road for both directions of traffic. Then they were completely blocking the road. All of this was in an area that was barren desert, with deep sand in all directions. The only way around was to leave the road, and drive through the open desert. Of course, as those of us who have driven through deep sand know, you need to air down and/or maintain enough velocity to avoid getting stuck. But most people had no experience with such driving conditions, so they were blasting through the open desert at high speed, and still getting stuck. The desert was littered with random vehicles stuck up to their axles in the sand, plus the chaos of so many vehicles driving in random routes through the sand. We got stuck for a while, and that drew a crowd, each with their own opinion of what we needed to do to extricate ourselves. It was kinda similar to the Mad Max Fury Road scene with the crazy vehicles racing through the open desert (minus the fire shooting from guitars). At the time, we assumed that was going to be the craziest part of the day, but later, we had to drive back to Kabul (due to a late/cancelled flight) through Taliban controlled territory, which was quite literally an active warzone with fortified army posts every kilometer and cratered roads from mortar fire (plus hoping we weren't stopped at a Taliban checkpoint).

[MojaveGeek]

Oh man, that is WAY more intense than any poor road story I have from Death Valley!!
Glad you made it out OK!!

[DeathValleyDazed]

 Death valley is definitely a spectacular place, but there are many other parts of the world that are equally amazing.

Loving your images and ability to negotiate such a spectacular trip. Thanks for sharing and due to limited resources your world trip reports will be my only way of seeing more of our amazing planet. 

What other desert regions of the world are on your bucket list? I've often wondered what desert area of Saudi Arabia are unknown to us westerners?

[netllama]

 Death valley is definitely a spectacular place, but there are many other parts of the world that are equally amazing.

Loving your images and ability to negotiate such a spectacular trip. Thanks for sharing and due to limited resources your world trip reports will be my only way of seeing more of our amazing planet. 

What other desert regions of the world are on your bucket list? I've often wondered what desert area of Saudi Arabia are unknown to us westerners?

I have plans to explore more of the Sahara, as I've only been to the extreme eastern (Sudan & Egypt) & western (Mauritania) edges at this point. I have a trip tentatively planned for November which will take me deep into a very remote part of the Sahara.

Beyond that, I was planning to go to Saudi Arabia last year, but that never worked out. I am waiting for an opportunity to reschedule that trip. I also want to visit the Gobi desert in Mongolia, and the Aatacama desert in Chile at some point. I've seen some of the Kalahari desert in Namibia, but I want to return to explore it further. I'd love to get into the interior of Antarctica, but those trips are obscenely expensive, and difficult to organize, so this seems unlikely.

[netllama]

FYI, I've finished writing up the detailed trip report which accompanies these photos here:
https://netllama.linux-sxs.org/llamaland/?p=3039

[TacoLand]

My girlfriend & I just read through your detailed trip report – quite an adventure you had there (as usual)!

Thanks for sharing all those photos and an extensive writeup of your experience. During our DV trip we were talking about our next international trip ... to be honest I don't think your report moved Afghanistan to our shortlist. Noodles are our #1 priority when traveling and it didn't sound like you slurped enough.

[netllama]

My girlfriend & I just read through your detailed trip report – quite an adventure you had there (as usual)!

Thanks for sharing all those photos and an extensive writeup of your experience. During our DV trip we were talking about our next international trip ... to be honest I don't think your report moved Afghanistan to our shortlist. Noodles are our #1 priority when traveling and it didn't sound like you slurped enough.

Ha ha. Yea, Afghanistan is definitely not for every one. Zero noodles in that part of the world, lots of rice & dumplings though.

[David_Bricker]

Great pictures and report. Thank you so much for sharing. It is truly a fascinating area, and I'm glad to be able to see it vicariously through your report.

David Bricker / SYR