Well, that was an understatement!
We came around a corner near the top of the second mountain range and were confronted with a
cluster of broken-down trucks, bits of gear box strewn in the dust, a few trucks haphazardly parked near
the entrance to the tunnel; but from the black hole in the side of the mountain was pouring a thick pall of
blue-black smoke. Gareth and I pulled over and switched off, both of us thinking the same thing: a truck
has caught fire inside.
I am ashamed to admit - but this is an honest account and all my maifold weaknesses will be
brutally exposed - that my first thought was not for the driver and his passengers being turned into toast
inside that black hole and all the other drivers caught in there asphyxiating whilst frantically trying to
reverse out; no, my first thought was: Bummer, our way is blocked yet again...
I didn't actually try to calculate how many days it would take for the tunnel to cool down and all
the dead bodies and twisted, burned-out wrecks to be removed (which we did when trying to work out
roughly how long it would take to bull-doze the rocks out of the cutting so we could get through), probably
because at that moment two of the waiting trucks started up and began to move towards the smoking
tunnel entrance. Both Gareth and I glanced quickly at each other and leapt on our bikes, starting them up
and pulling in just behind the second truck: If they could get through, so could we.
The trucks crawled towards the entrance, both of us tucked in behind, so slow that we had to walk
the bikes along to stop them falling over. We followed them inside, smoke billowing about us, the noise
loud and oppressive. Then Gareth poked his head round the side of the truck immediately in front and
pulled away; I followed, seeing just enough to hope that I wouldn't meet something coming the other way
with its lights off. We made it past both trucks, our lights like two pale fingers probing the darkness in
front of us.
As with any tunnel that is totally dark, it doesn't take long before you begin losing your sense of
direction; with no points of reference, the mind begins to play tricks, you can no longer tell which is up or
down; you have no idea where you are headed and your sense of balance leaves you. The easiest solution
for me was to focus on the dim red point of light receding into the darkness in front of me that was
Gareth's tail light and head for it.
I became aware - with not a little concern - that I was breathing almost nothing but exhaust fumes.
The smoke wasn't smoke at all; it was diesel fumes. My throat felt raw, my lungs seared; my eyes began to
burn. To add to the Stygian feeling of the place, the murky, swirling, stench of underground darkness, all
about us was a noise so loud it threatened to overwhelm my senses. I tried to identify it, to place it, but
couldn't. It was the kind of noise that makes your ears bleed; a noise that, in normal countries, you would
be prosecuted for allowing your employees to work in; the kind of noise you might hear moments before a
Kamatz truck rides over your head. And, in the darkness and smoke and chaos of the tunnel, it seemed,
after a while, to be coming from the centre of my chest.
At first, the road surface was pot-holed tar. But this soon degenerated: most of the tar disappeared and the
road - could it be called a road? - became broken and ridged. Everything was wet and all the potholes had
filled with water. As the floor of the tunnel was also wet, the holes weren't visible - you just had to hit
them and hope for the best.
Suddenly, without any warning (because I couldn't see it) I fell into a deep, water-filled hole. The potholes
and degenerated into craters that could cover half the "road"; and you didn't know what half because the
entire floor of the tunnel - I keep on wanting to type "cave" because that's what it seemed like - was wet
and running with water which glinted dimly in the headlights until suddenly Whomp! you'd go down again.
Some of these lakes were hub-deep with sharp edges and, again, we had no option but to hit them and
plough on, bashing and sloshing our way through.