Checking In

My room at Hunza Serena Inn is one of twenty in a row, all of them looking out on a white, tiled terrace, beyond which are green, carefully cultivated fields. The fields are set below large, craggy mountains extending far into the sky. The Inn’s rock walls solidly fit into a groove in the valley so if I look out at the view – truly like nothing I have ever seen – it feels like I am hanging in the sky. The staff serves me apricot juice, a subtle invitation to wait outside my allocated room while they change the linen. They are friendly but not apologetic, proud to have me here, not because of who I am (nobody) but because of what they have to offer.

What they have to offer: rocky mountains pressed so close to the Inn’s terrace, it’s hard not to feel large by extension. Orchards beginning to ripen with the promise of cherries, apricots and strawberries. Hunza is historically a princely state. I sit on the worn cane chair they’ve placed outside my door. It’s May and the hotel is at full occupancy, full of honeymooners beginning to straggle back from the nearby village to disappear, giddy, into their rooms. It is easy to feel lonely here with the vastness of the valley spread out like a feast before the setting sun.

The manager of the Inn is a man named Asghar. He sits on the empty chair beside me. I wonder if he can tell I am regretting coming alone. I take off my shoes and press my feet to the still warm, tiled floor. The encroaching darkness starts to swallow the mountains. Small yellow dots appear, lights from houses tucked into the valley. Asghar smiles to himself, staring straight out into the darkness. “What?” I ask self-consciously. He turns and beams, “My five year old is travelling back from Islamabad tomorrow. He had a heart operation today.” He continues before I can find the words to respond, “He’s fine.” There is a pause. “Alhamdulillah.”

The night is absolutely still aside from the sound of this man, an almost stranger, talking to me in a low, soothing tone. He tells me about the celebrations to celebrate the Aga Khan’s first visit to Hunza in 1960. As a tradition, every year on July 11 the entire village flings burning tires down the mountain sides so it looks like the ranges are on fire – rolling, rolling, rolling. I try to imagine it, lights colliding, blazing toward the ground, a secret joy gaining force and power as it comes into its own. “You must come back to see,” he says gently. “I will,” I promise.