Simone Thibaudeau hates boring holidays and Claude Fievet loves Central Asia. So when they were invited on a package tour of Afghanistan, the woman of 73 and the man of 80 did not hesitate.
In a Kabul hotel after three weeks in the north of a country that is more associated with war than tourism, they were tired but inspired.
“A trip to Afghanistan was so tempting that we decided to do it practically without hesitation and we have no regrets,” said Thibaudeau, who travelled with her husband despite being warned off by friends and family.
Fievet, the oldest in the group, did not think twice when the Explorator travel agency offered the trip. “It has been a dream for years,” the octogenarian said enthusiastically.
Things started badly when the small group assembled at a Paris airport the day after the bloody May 29 Kabul riots in which hundreds of young men took to the streets after a fatal road accident involving a United States military vehicle, some chanting “Death to America”.
At the end of the day about 20 people were dead and the city was in shock, reminded of how quickly things can unravel here.
Three of the 12 retirees scheduled to go to Afghanistan pulled out. The others ignored the French foreign ministry’s insistence that they give up and signed a waiver absolving the government of liability for their safety.
The trip was cancelled as an organised voyage with those still wanting to go having to agree to be responsible for themselves, said Explorator chairperson Herve Tribot La Spiere, who has been offering adventure holidays since 1971.
Was this a tad reckless for a country where many foreigners venture out only after taking security precautions? “Not at all,” said 64-year-old Serge Reneleau, insisting they were all responsible and used to big journeys.
The chairperson had himself never set foot in Afghanistan but had done his homework. After two years of research, “I figured in good conscience that we were taking a reasonable, limited risk,” acknowledging the country could be “hostile”.
And so began a communal discovery, with a local guide and tourist agency, of this ancient and rugged land.
The south and the east, subjected to almost daily attacks as part of the Taliban-led insurgency, were ruled out.
Instead the elderly adventurers went to beautiful Bamiyan, where once sat the great 1Â 800-year-old statues of Buddha that were blown up by the Taliban weeks before the Islamic movement was forced out of power in late 2001.
There were the startlingly deep blue lakes at Band-i-Amir nearby, and the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif with its tiled shrine and white doves.
The travellers strolled through the ruins of the ancient city of Balkh, once the home of Alexander the Great and one of the most important cities in Central Asia, and the fertile Panjshir Valley near Kabul.
Curiously they also visited Bagram, known today more for a huge military base for the US-led coalition hunting down Taliban than anything else.
The trip cost them a little over â,¬4Â 500 ($5Â 600) and tourists often slept rough — sometimes under the stars — or spent hours being bashed about in a 4X4 or trudging under the sun. But there were no complaints.
“For those that are thinking about their comfort, I would tell them not to come to Afghanistan,” Thibaudeau said. “It is not yet ready for tourists, that’s for sure,” she said, deadpan.
“I am in good health, everything is going well, but this is all the same a journey which demands physical commitment.”
What memories will this unlikely band take home with them? “What struck me the most is the suffering of the Afghans,” Thibaudeau said. Reneleau was moved by the orchards and shades of ochre rock at Bamiyan.
The voyage may have been a success but Tribot La Spiere is not yet ready to add it to his agency’s catalogue.
“I will not count on the fact that our journey passed off well to imagine for a second that there will again be such conditions to make this a regular trip,” he said.
“It doesn’t seem to me that the time has come to even think of regular trips here in any sense.” – AFP