TRAVERSE 85
TRAVEL- SOUTH ASIA
ROCCO ANTONIO COSSA
THROUGH THE HARD COUNTRY
I
feared that after the“ bath of humanity” I had experienced in Afghanistan, nothing would touch me quite as deeply again. Yet Pakistan, with its rugged vastness, its raw humanity, and its unexpected grace, proved me wrong. It was a land that tested every limit— physical, emotional, spiritual— and still managed to move me profoundly.
It challenged me and drained me, stripped me bare and refilled me. It stretched my endurance to breaking point, even on a motorcycle, yet repaid me with moments of immense generosity— encounters that no photograph could capture, landscapes so vast and strange that they defied imagination. I rode on roads and over mule tracks that I had never thought possible on my little KTM, my faith in the machine— and in myself— constantly tested and renewed.
In Peshawar, I felt the full weight of Pakistan’ s contradictions. A city at once modern and decaying, alive and crumbling. The streets swarmed with noise and dust, the air thick with the smell of frying oil and burnt rubbish. I wandered through it all, dazed and disoriented, dodging Tuk Tuks and beggars, trying to blend into the chaos. Then a voice broke through:“ Where are you from? Come here!”
A shopkeeper had spotted me and, sensing my confusion, beckoned me into his small shop. Inside, among his children and shelves of goods, I took my first sip of lassi— thick, sweet, refreshing. The world softened. I relaxed. Later that night, I wandered again and somehow ended up not in a guesthouse, but in a Pakistani home, sitting crosslegged on a rug, sharing tea and stories with people who had been strangers just hours earlier. That’ s Pakistan: hard, demanding, but endlessly generous.
TRAVERSE 85