And yet the whole group took on a holiday spirit. As the bus began its labored climb from Tashkurghan at 10,000 feet toward Pirali and the Khunjerab Pass at 16,000 feet, we were blanketed with snow. A pair of boys on the bus had never seen snow. A pair of bald eagles soared above us. The bus continued to plow through snow till we reached the highest point in the Khunjerab pass.
Celebration is mandatory there.
When we came through the first time, a group of traveling Pakistani men formed a circle, clapping and playing drums and dancing and singing. This time we watched snowball fights in the fog. As we descended into Pakistan , the snow turned to rain and the switchbacks got scarier. The change in weather had caused a lot of small rockslides that road crews were cleaning up. A tractor had flipped over and the driver lay dead on the pavement.