Eventually he got up, opened the door, and motioned for us to step out. We were taken to a little kitchen and served tea and cookies. In the next room we could hear Vito calling his superiors. Two hours later another officer arrived.
"Welcome in Tajikistan," he said happily, then shook our hands. He looked like a bearded Antonio Banderas.
We thought he actually spoke English, but he didn't, so the interviews took a long time. Vito and Tony had some kind of comic-book interrogation manual that they used to extract information from us.
Were we Al Qaeda? Were we Taliban? Were we CIA? Were we drug smugglers?
We answered no to all of the above.
What were we, then?
Tourists.
Tourists. Tourists who walked all the way across the Wakhan?
