Dam of Awe to be Afghan National Park

Kabul puts beauty spot on tourist trail, 36 years late, as visitors face perilous trip to see natural wonder
The two-day, bone-rattling journey to Band-i-Amir may be littered with landmines and the odd village of Taliban sympathisers, but if the Afghan government gets its way a collection of five sapphire-blue lakes will one day become one of Central Asia's hottest international tourist destinations.

A first significant step was taken yesterday when Afghanistan declared that one of its most astonishing natural features will become the country's first national park - 36 years after a previous attempt to do so was interrupted by political strife and decades of war.

Few people would deny that the crystal-clear lakes in the country's mountainous center, which are ringed with pink cliffs, deserve their new designation, which still needs to be ratified by parliament.

Nancy Hatch Dupree, in her classic 1970 guide to Afghanistan, wrote that a full description of such a place would "rob the uninitiated of the wonder and amazement it produces on all who gaze upon it".

According to local lore the huge natural dams of slow-growing mineral deposits that hold the lakes in place were thrown into position by Hazrat Ali, the prophet Muhammad's son-in-law, during the reign of the infidel king Barbar.

Today the mineral-rich water bubbles through the cracks of the Dam of the Slaves, the Groom's Dam, the Mint Dam and the Dam of Cheese and surrounding wetlands. But it is the Dam of Awe, or Band-i-Haibat, that attracts most visitors and where the government hopes tourist facilities including guest houses and shops can be established. About two miles long and 1,500 feet wide, the waters are supposed to have healing properties for anyone who braves temperatures that remain icy all year round in an area just under 3,000 meters above sea level.

For those who prefer not to swim, weirdly incongruous pink, blue and yellow swan-shaped pedaloes can be hired for less than a dollar for an hour of floating about on the placid waters.

The central highlands, dominated by the Hazara ethnic group, which has no truck with the Pashtun-dominated Taliban insurgency, is relatively safe and boasts other tourist magnets including the valley of Bamiyan, famous for the giant Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban in late 2001.

Speaking at an event marking the signing of the decree turning the area into a national park yesterday, Frank Ricciardone, deputy US ambassador, was bullish in his predictions for the area's future. "You will draw visitors not only from all across Afghanistan, but all across the region and the world."

But although the province's international military base, run by New Zealand, is spending $1.5m on an eco-tourism project there are major obstacles to overcome before the area takes off as an international tourist destination.

According to a 2005 survey by the Asian Development Bank, almost 40,000 domestic tourists visited Band-i-Amir and Bamiyan, as did between 3,000 and 4,000 international visitors, mostly drawn from foreigners working in Kabul. Local officials say numbers dropped off sharply as security nationwide deteriorated.

While the shortest road from Kabul to Bamiyan and Band-i-Amir has been too dangerous for foreigners to travel for years, last summer a vehicle carrying an international aid worker on a previously safe long route was hit by a roadside bomb.When the Guardian attempted the journey by motorbike last October, police had to come to the rescue after a breakdown in one of the few Pashtun areas, close to the attack. The yard of the police station where the Guardian sought refuge boasted craters from a recent rocket attack.

Increasingly, foreigners rely on the dirt airstrip at Bamiyan, although flights are infrequent and technically reserved for those on official humanitarian business.

Last summer Sandy Gall, the TV journalist who covered the bloodshed in Afghanistan in the 1980s, horrified Foreign Office bureaucrats by leading a party of largely female Britons on a sponsored walk near the lakes to raise money for his Afghan charity. A shortage of seats on the plane forced a number of middle-aged woman to return to Kabul by minibus.

Amir Folabi, head of eco-tourism in Bamiyan for the Aga Khan Foundation, said the eco-tourism initiative was not intended to cater for a sudden increase in foreign tourists but to lay the ground work for sustainable tourism in the future.

© Guardian News & Media 2008