Hingol National Park

Listen first. Wind moves across the open ground, and fine dust rises with it. The cliffs around you are pale, almost the colour of dry bread. Heat comes up off the stone. On some days there is a faint smell of salt in the air, carried in from the Arabian Sea. This is Hingol National Park. Out here the quiet is so complete that a passing truck sounds like a small event.

You are on the Makran coast of Balochistan, Pakistan's largest and least crowded province. From the town of Hub, near Karachi, the journey runs west along the Makran Coastal Highway. For a long time this coast was very hard to reach. Then the highway opened in the early 2000s and changed everything. A trip that once needed days and a sturdy vehicle became a long but simple drive.

Hingol was declared a national park in 1988. It is one of the largest protected areas in Pakistan, and it covers several thousand square kilometres. What surprises most visitors is how many kinds of land it holds. There is desert and rocky mountain. There is a river valley with green pools, and a long, empty coastline. Few protected areas in the region hold so much variety within one boundary.

Look closely at the rock. Much of it is soft sediment — mudstone, siltstone and sandstone that settled long ago under ancient seas. Material like this is easy to shape. Wind cuts into it day after day. Rare but heavy rains wash down the slopes and cut deep grooves. Over a very long time this slow work has left towers, columns and faces. As you cross the Buzi Pass, the whole landscape starts to look sculpted.

One formation stops almost every car on the road. It is a huge block of rock with a flat top, and its shape looks very like a crouching sphinx. Locals and travellers call it the Sphinx of Balochistan. Nobody carved it. Wind and water made it from the same soft cliffs that surround you. Seen from below, it looks deliberate enough to make many people check their photographs twice.

Not far away stands a slender pillar with a tilted top. Some people see a woman in a long dress looking out over the land. It is known as the Princess of Hope. According to a popular story, the name came from the actress Angelina Jolie. She is said to have visited the area in the early 2000s as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations refugee agency. The tale is repeated often, but treat the details as local lore.

The park takes its name from the Hingol River. It is one of the longer rivers in Balochistan, and it winds down through the hills to the sea. For much of the year it shrinks into a chain of still, green pools. These pools hold a surprise. Mugger crocodiles — a broad-snouted freshwater species found across South Asia — live in the river. Sometimes, if you are patient and quiet, you can see one resting at the edge of the water.

The mountains have their own residents. The park protects wild goats and sheep, including the Sindh ibex and the urial, a reddish wild sheep with curling horns. The chinkara, a small and graceful gazelle, moves across the flatter ground. These animals are shy and well camouflaged against the rock. The best chances come at dawn and late afternoon. That is when the heat eases and the animals come down to feed.

Where the hills meet the sea, you reach Kund Malir. It is a long, wide beach of pale sand, with dark mountains rising behind it. On many days you can walk a long way without meeting anyone. The water is a deep blue-green. This coast also matters for sea turtles, which come ashore at night to lay their eggs in the sand. If you camp here, keep lights low and stay clear of any marked nesting areas.

The park also holds one of the most sacred places in Hinduism. Hinglaj Mata is a small cave shrine set in a narrow gorge. Hindus count it among the Shakti Peethas — shrines linked to the goddess and her divine power. Every year, usually in spring, many pilgrims make the journey here for the Hinglaj Yatra. Many come from Karachi and from across Sindh. For a few days, this quiet valley fills with prayer, music and the sound of thousands of footsteps.

On the way to the shrine, many pilgrims stop at a mud volcano called Chandragup. A mud volcano is a cone built by gas and water that push wet mud up from below the ground. Chandragup rises as a grey mound with a bubbling crater on top. Pilgrims climb the slope and make offerings, and many throw coconuts into the mud. Mud volcanoes are common along this coast, but few carry such deep meaning for the people who visit.

A word about practical things. This is a wild place, and services are very limited. Bring more water than you think you need, along with food, sun protection and a full tank of fuel. Mobile signal comes and goes. You will likely pass security checkpoints on the highway, so carry identification. Above all, respect the shrine and the pilgrims. To them, this is holy ground, not a backdrop for a photograph.

Now look around once more. The light is probably shifting on the cliffs, from white to gold, or from gold toward rose. The wind is still moving the dust. Somewhere below, the river pools sit still under the sun, and the sea keeps working at the sand. As you walk back to the road, notice the shapes in the rock. Some of them will look like faces. Take a moment with them before you go.