Here are some of the pictures I took to document my quick jaunt out to Herat. None are fantastic since they were mostly shot from the air, but I at least got to get some pictures on what was a very nice day in Afghanistan.
Kabul from the air
These buildings, I'm assuming apartments, are visible directly south of Camp Gibson, over the top of the wall.
"Honey, do you know where I put my keys?" "Keys?! I can't remember where I put our house! They all look identical" "Ours is the brown one!"
Downtown Kabul!
One thing I'll give Afghani engineers - they can draw straight lines pretty good.
These homes go right up against the hillside, but on the other side, there is nothing - the city ends right here.
The rural areas north of Kabul. All that snow in the mountains makes rivers that feed this greenery. It really looks beautiful to me.
One of the vales that reach up into the mountains. I think this would be a paradise.
I like these photos of the mountains with the ranks of the rest of the range lined up behind. So beautiful. There were some frozen lakes along the tops of these mountains.
The patterns of erosion in this country are beautiful. Composure and everything else-wise, this is my favorite picture from the day.
Mazar-I-Sharif airport - helicopters practicing formations.
Mazar-I-Sharif National Airport. All three Afghani airports I saw on this day looked very similar to this.
The only large body of water I saw the whole day. It's man-made, but still beautiful.
Herat Airport and the surrounding mountains.
Welcome to Herat in English and in squiggles. I'm joking, those aren't squiggles, that is Dari for "Westerners, please leave your money and go home."
Finally, this is a closeup of Herat airport. I was curious about this guy on the roof. I found out later that he was doing two things. 1. Waving the planes into the airport. They don't have fancy "radios" or "walkie talkie" devices in Herat. Azim has been waving in the planes for years now, and he's pretty good at it. 2. Checking the wind direction. You can't see, but right before I took this, he stuck his finger in his mouth and is now holding it up to see where the wind is coming from.
Wonderful pictures but please tell me that guy waving is NOT an air traffic controller!
I bet it’s hard for you to see that countryside and not be out in it.
You know, I made that up about the guy at the airport. I actually didn’t notice him until I was looking at the pictures, and it just really looked like he was directing traffic!
it was really good story about the guy on the roof.
love the pictures. at least the trip broke up your routine for a little bit even if it wasn’t super interesting. plus you got a heck of a lot of nuts!