The Blog and the Shower

As a follow up to what I wrote below, here’s a statement by the fourth companion of my friends–the one who didn’t hike on the day that the three were picked up–explaining why they were in the area in the first place:

There is no Lonely Planet Iraqi Kurdistan, and Ahmed Awa was not on the map we’d printed out. My sense–wrongly as it turns out–was that Ahmed Awa lay northwest of Sulaimania, in the direction of Dokan Lake (and Dokan Resort), another scenic area we’d considered visiting during our trip through Kurdistan. [...]

At about 11:30 AM I called Shane. He told me the weather had been mild all night. That morning they had woken up early and resumed hiking along the same trail. Shane sounded very calm and content, happy to be in a beautiful environment, and made absolutely no mention of any risk whatsoever. I am absolutely certain that they had no knowledge of their proximity to the Iranian border or they would have never continued in that direction.

Still thinking of my friends, and hoping for a quick(er) resolution to all this.

If you’ve been watching the news, maybe you’ve noticed that one of the three Amerian hikers detained in Iran is the journalist Shane Bauer, whom I mentioned earlier on my blog after he wrote an excellent article for The Nation.  Detained with him is his girlfriend Sarah Shourd, who was a good friend of mine in Damascus.  I don’t know their third companion, only that he was a friend who planned to visit from the U.S.

I am personally offended by comments I have read and heard about these three insinuating that they are U.S. government agents of any kind.  Shane and Sarah are people of great integrity who stand against the abuse of U.S. power in the Middle East.  Additionally, they are very experienced travelers, and I can only speculate as to how they might have miscalculated so badly as to wander into Iranian territory.  I hope that they will be released soon and emerge from all of this unscathed.