“I’ve never had a worse journey in my life,” says the old man sitting in the rear of the jeep, clinging tightly onto the fittings of the SUV. “What with rock falls, landslides, crashed trucks, snowfall on the high ground… that road is a real nightmare!” The Karnali Highway, in the North West of Nepal is the most dangerous road in the country. It’s 250 kilometres long and links the town of Surkhet, in the valley, to Jumla, altitude 3,000 metres. It sometimes takes five days to make the trip. Hewn out of the rock on the flank of the mountain set in an outstanding natural background, this road, opened barely two years ago, is finally allowing the population of this, the poorest region of Nepal to open up to the rest of the country, to move about and, above all, to bring in supplies of every type. Drivers of trucks, jeeps and even tractors, travellers, shopkeepers who go down to the valley for supplies, public transport, columns of people on foot walking for several days to get to their village… for them the road, despite everything, is the safest and fastest way of getting around this mountainous region. For several weeks, we accompanied all those who, willingly or otherwise, take this “impossible highway”. -
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