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belief.
Shimshal is the name whispered like a dare among riders. Fifty kilometres of terror, they said. A road blasted out of sheer rock by villagers, taking eighteen years of pickaxes and dynamite before it finally opened in 2003.
We turned off from Passu, crossed a bridge swaying over the Hunza River, and entered what felt like another world. The track was no wider than my bike in places, with cliffs dropping hundreds of metres into the torrent below. Every switchback demanded a prayer. The gravel shifted constantly, like riding on marbles.
Halfway in, we’ d met by a jeep coming the other way. There was nowhere to pass. The driver motioned for us to edge against the cliff while he crawled by, inches separating his tyres from the abyss. As he squeezed past, he smiled and shouted:“ Shimshal welcomes you!” I laughed, mostly to hide the fact that my legs were shaking so hard I could barely hold the clutch.
At a bend overlooking the valley, another shrine appeared, red flags snapping in the wind, rags tied to a pole. A local rider, on a battered Chinese 125cc, stopped beside me. He told me the shrine belonged to a pir who had blessed the construction of the road. Without his spiritual sanction, the villagers believed, no one would have survived the blasting. He leaned close and whispered:“ Some say his spirit still walks here. That is why the road holds, even when the mountain wants to eat it.” As my new friend rode away, something stirred in a nearby field. Chills ran over my body as I sensed a presence watching from the grass. I rode on down the track and in my one remaining mirror I noticed a woman working the field beside the shrine I’ d just visited. Had she been there the whole time?
By the time we all rattled
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