Salang

The drive to Pulikhumbri would take me through the Salang Pass and the highest tunnel in the world, at 14,000 feet. It’s an engineering marvel, built by the Russians, and I just had to drive it. But before I got to the tunnel, I had to cross the Shamali Plain, with its fading tulips, and through the Salang valley. There, villages built of stone and mud-brick (and occasional, artillery shells) cascade down the spines of the mountains as if they would spill upon the road. Years ago, Salang was a hot spot for foreign tourists. Little wonder – Salang has a Shangri-La feel to it, set in another time, high above the mortal world, with terraced fields, slim aspens, and a river dancing along the valley floor.

As we climbed higher, the trees disappeared and we entered a stark landscape of boulders and snow. This is where the “galleries” begin – tunnels built to keep the road free of rockslides and avalanches. The galleries are sliced at regular intervals by narrow ventilation shafts, which unfortunately result in snow and ice getting into the galleries, mucking up the road and slowing traffic.

Afghans have a bazaar mentality when it comes to driving. In a western shop, people queue up and wait their turn. In an eastern bazaar, however, people throng the sellers, pushing and shoving and sticking their elbows in each other’s eyes to get to the front of the crowd. They do this when driving as well, as if, Harry Potter-like, they can zip their cars through impossibly narrow spaces and the objects in their way will magically leap aside. Poof! They’re in front!

But vehicles don’t have the same “give” as humans in a bazaar, and the result is a massive traffic jam, in a tunnel filled with cars spouting black exhaust. People have died in these tunnels from carbon monoxide poisoning, and as I clasped my headscarf to my nose (101 uses for a headscarf!), I worried. In spite of the shafts of sunlight, I was choking and claustrophobic. If it felt like this in the galleries (not all of them, fortunately), what would it be like in the Salang Tunnel, which cuts 2.7 kilometers through solid mountain?