In 1956, two friends decide to go on a trip to Nuristan. Nuristan ? A remote province of Eastern Afghanistan surrounded by mountains, called Kafiristan, Land of Infidels, until it was forcibly converted to Islam in 1895 and became Nuristan, Land of Light. So these friends get their gear together and go, after two days of climbing in Scotland, to ascend the Mir Samir, 5809 m. They fail at 170 m from the top, but this does not affect the story. As Eric Newby’s companion points out : “…his (Eric’s) story is about the way we travelled rather than what we achieved”. And the way they travelled was incredible. Nearly no equipment at the time, it seems, local food and water giving them dysentery, banal boots and gym shoes, bare-handed. The local populations, the people they took with them, everything is related with precision, humour and wit. This is a book I would have never picked up in a library, travel stories not being my cup of tea, but I took loads of pleasure in reading the adventures of these two men, laughing a lot and learning about this place I had never heard of.
“We might be able to get you a horse, Hugh said.
He could not have said anything better. I am completely ignorant of horses. The last time I had attempted to mount one, I faced the wrong way when putting my foot in the stirrup and found myself in the saddle facing the creature’s tail. Worse, being nervous of horses, I emanate a smell of death when close to them so that, sniffing it, they take fright themselves and attempt to destroy me. A horse would certainly have destroyed me on the road we had traversed that afternoon. At some places it had been only a couple of feet wide with a sheer drop to the river below.”