Day 1 July 11, 2001 Peshawar to Quetta (not)

We woke early this morning so we could do all the last minute stuff before we started out on our trip. However. things did not go quite as we planned.

We checked in at 8:45am for our 9:30 flight. Then we waited... The flight took off at 10:30 and we were in the air for about 20 minutes when we turned around and flew back to Peshawar. Where we waited... Then we took off again around 12:00 and flew as far as Zhob, a small airport en route to Quetta, where we waited... 

Our wait in Zhob took on a dream like character. We were waiting for visibility to improve in Quetta but when we called our friends there to let them know they said visibility was fine. (When we tried to phone a couple of hours later to Peshawar we were told the phone was for official business only. Maybe they didn't like outside info.) Then, once it had been decided to fly back to Peshawar, the weather between Zhob and Peshawar was bad. So we waited...

We eventually got back to Peshawar at 8pm picked up some food (all PIA had fed us was some Tuc wafers and a couple of cups of tea) and took a taxi to Islamabad to catch the flight from there to Quetta the following day.

Day 2 July 12, 2001 Islamabad to Quetta

We woke early this morning... (sound familiar?) This morning we woke in a nice motel room in Islamabad. We got to the airport in lots of time for our 10am flight. Then we waited... The plane took off 2 hours late but this time we made it! A friend had told us that the new train to Quetta was much better than the old one, even if it took 24 hours. He had to call us at the house we were staying at and tell me, "You would have been quicker coming by train."

One of our struggles in the first few days of our trip has been tummy trouble. None of us were feeling too well for the weeks before and these first days were full of nausea and diahorea. We didn't shake it until we got to Shiraz. 

Day 3 July 13, 2001 Quetta to Taftan (Pak/Iran border)

We took this morning to do all the things we should have done in Peshawar and didn't, buying more Flagyle (for intestinal parasites) being a major one. Then it was off to catch the overnight air conditioned coach to the border. We had heard everything from 12 to 18 hours for this. As it turned out it was just over 12 hours.