Would the wilderness ever end? Would we ever make it to civilization again?

Tehran, Iran 1978

Masud pushed his head out of the jeep’s window. “We’re going to visit family in Pakistan,” he told the guard outside.

“The border is closed. No crossing tonight.”

Masud sighed. “You mean we need to spend the night in Iran?”

“That’s right.” The guard’s voice was guttural and harsh. “The border’s closed.”

Masud pulled the lever and put the jeep into reverse. It wasn’t a punishable crime for an Iranian to visit family in Pakistan, but it wasn’t permitted either. Fortunately, the guard did not suspect us of trying to escape the country forever. If he would have, he would have imprisoned us on the spot.

I clenched my fist and drew my Pakistani dress tightly around me. Where would we spend the next six hours until dawn?

“There’s a hotel not too far away,” Masud said, as though intuiting my question. “We’ll spend the night there and continue our journey tomorrow.”

Hotel conditions in the Sistan and Baluchistan province of Iran were a far cry from hotel conditions in first world countries. But I didn’t know what first world country hotels were like back then, so I simply allowed myself to sink onto the sheetless bed in my room with relief. We were safe and unharmed. And on our way out of Iran as well.

The next morning, we all congregated in front of Masud’s room for a quick planning session.

“We’ll have to try a different route this time,” Masud said. “Last night the border was guarded. But if we approach it again this morning, hopefully everything will be okay.”

Masud was right. As I pursed my lips tightly together and uttered a silent prayer that our escape meet with success, Masud drove his jeep past the area where we’d been stopped the previous night.

There were no guards to be seen.