Today had been a chilled day and an information day resting up ready for our big adventure to come.
We were a bit jet lagged having arrived in the very early hours of the morning walking out the airport at 3am local time. Walking out as a family from the UK was a serial experience as we stuck out from everyone else who was arriving. There were literally 1000’s waiting in the arrivals for their family to return from Hajj and the atmosphere was buzzing. We definitely stuck out as “different” with the 1000s of eyes following us as we went.
After a good sleep and a “lie in” at our hotel (https://grandislamabadhotel.com/) we enjoyed a fantastic lunch of curry and Pizza in the hotel restaurant. After lunch we sat and met with Chris and his team. Chris is the owner of Epic expeditions, who with his team in Pakistan was organising all our logistics. After a few hours of chat on the the itinerary, our guides and our responsibilities and the plan for the next month we felt ready for our trip, nervous with anticipation.
Our final job was to complete an equipment check with Chris checking our sleeping bags and boots in particular were going to be up to the extremes ahead. He also gave us some new T-shirts and hats (much to the delight of the boys) before finally repacking and then heading out to a local restaurant for our welcome dinner!
Just like lunch we were treated to a wonderful meal at the the https://kabulrestaurant.pk/. The food and atmosphere here is awesome and highly recommended.
It was then early to bed, making this a short day. We were still feeling the affects to the long flight and we needed to be up early for breakfast before our flight up in to the mountains to Skardu!
Family Russell-Smith Travel 