Wanderlust

Wanderlust is defined as a strong desire for or an impulse to wander or travel and explore the world... And I suffer from it time to time.
 I enjoy getting behind the wheel and hitting the road. I learned to drive at the young age of 14 years and i still enjoy driving my car.
 The anticipation of what might lie ahead or what awaits you on the road...what new landscapes you are going to see...what wildlife or livestock you might come across...what people you come across.... It is all very exciting for me.

Reaching the destination is one thing but the journey is the most interesting part for me.

People wonder why I like to drive and why don't I just take a plane and get to my destination in a much shorter time...but...for me travelling by road is a whole another experience...it is "Organic"...you are in touch with your surroundings...you interact with the environment.

You get to see the road, the cities, the scenery, up close. You get to see the weather and the changing weather...you get to see a storm forming far away...you see the beautiful display of lightening in the clouds far away...it is electric. 

You see rotating clouds changing shape really fast and pray that the rotation doesn't get stronger and turns into a full fledged Tornado.
Sometimes you end up in the middle of a storm and everything turns dark and rain pours down like buckets of water... and all you can see are the red lights of the cars ahead of you and you follow that...you can't see the side of the road, it is almost by instinct that you  drive...full attention and full focus on the little red lights of the car ahead of you...it makes one feel alive. ....or... you are hit by hail and you try to find shelter real quick...Find a bridge and park under it, a Rest Stop or a gas station...you run inside and get some warm coffee or a cold drink and wait it out...and there you are among strangers but you are all experiencing the same thing and you form a temporary bond with the fellow travelers...people you will never see again.

Sometimes we get to see a beautiful huge Rainbow after the rain and thunder. The atmosphere after the rain is so fresh and clean...everything looks new and washed...the green is greener and all the colours of nature look punched...the air clean and everything looks sharper.

Once I was driving at night time and we saw these Bluish green ribbons of light waving in the sky...it was "Aurora Borealis" or the "Northern Lights" and they are a sight to behold. I have never seen anything like that in my life...it was amazing! If I was not on the road at 1 am that night in the Northern hemisphere, I would have missed experiencing such beauty.

You see the landscape change from flat to Rocky mountains and you drive by lakes and rivers...you see beautiful birds in the lakes sitting idly....you see forests that were burnt down by fire with just the burnt tree trunks remaining...where there once used to be a lush green forest....that has a beauty of its own.

The sun changes its position...as the day goes by...and you see fields and lakes and trees in a different light. Evening light just before sunset makes everything look beautiful...that is the perfect time to take photographs.

With change in landscape there is a change in the people as well...it is subtle but you notice from town to town how people are different...the way they dress, a little change in dialect...the way they decorate and the symbols they use in their decor are very telling.


Maybe i like all this driving because i have been used to it since i was a child and my father drove us everywhere and we got to see different places on the road and had some memorable trips with family and friends...and ended up having some adventure as well....

Once it was middle of the night and we were travelling from Zhob to Quetta and it started snowing hard...the roads became slippery, our car's heater died on us...it was a Mazda...and then our car got stuck in the snow...in the middle of nowhere. (This was before the cell phone days.) The ice started to form on the windshield and windshield wipers were of no use...( It was just sheet ice) my father had to go out of the car to try to scrape the ice off the windshield with a comb! That was the only thing we had that he could use to scrape the ice.  My father smoked so we had some matches with us and he tried to light the matches and melt the snow but they were little matches and died real quick. 
My father couldn't see anything and the car hit  a train's gate... thank God he didn't hit the train.
So... we were stuck, with no heat...and little kids in the back with some blankets...
 I was just seven years old and i was the eldest...the rest were younger and my sister was hardly a few months old.
Fortunate for us that at that moment in the distance, my father saw a light...it was a little roadside Chai place. Lucky for us. He went there and got some hot water from them and poured on the windshield...the ice melted and he could see better and we drove off to Quetta...we made it home safe with some damage to the car but from that day onward one of my father's rule was never to travel at night...especially with young kids.

Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis ) (Not my photograph)

Sunset in Montana

Burnt Trees in Montana.

Another memorable trip was a drive all the way from Turbat to Quetta. I wanted to see the whole of Baluchistan by road and convinced my siblings to go by road with me...it was a long trip (469 mi ) and the roads weren't good at all, but me being the eldest got my way.
 I was in the 11th grade at the time...the landscape was beautiful  but at places there was no road...only tire tracks that our driver followed ( he was a local and he knew his way around )

There was hardly any population on the way...no Truck driver stops or shops etc...very few places where you could stop for food or drink...mostly dry parched land, rocky mountains and dessert with some oasis here and there....and we slept under the Satriest  sky one has ever seen. Because there were no city lights to dim the Star light.

 It was in Khuzdar where we slept in "Machardanis" ( mosquito nets ) under the open sky. It was really a beautiful sky and i have never seen a sky like that again in my life.
My siblings still remember that night and that is the only thing they liked about that whole trip...the rest of the trip i got cursed for making them go by road...where there was no road at all and their backs hurt form all the off road driving.

We did stop at some local's house and they offered us Tea and snacks as we were the Commissioner's children...He was a Hindu and a local leader. He owned some gas stations there. I found it interesting that a Hindu was a local leader and that the locals had accepted him...he had lived there all his life and his ancestors had lived there before him...so this was his home as much as any other Baluch, Bugti or Mengal's home...But those were the good old days...now we have a different yard stick to measure people's worth and value with.

Anyway after Khuzdar the road was paved and we were thankful for that... reached Quetta in 2 days from Turbat, but i did get to see places that no one has ever seen and the images are etched in my mind....the Stary night Sky, the tire tracks in the sand that we followed...an Oasis or a grove of Date trees...the beautiful sunsets...someone playing beautiful flute in the silent night while we slept under the starry sky...Beauty,Peace and Tranquility.

Now a days sometimes when i am driving around town and hit a highway...i have this strong urge to keep on driving on the Highway and see where it takes me...just keep going...but then i remember that i have a life and obligations and that brings me back down to earth. Maybe in my previous life i was a Wanderer...and so to quench my wanderlust i drive.