Afghanistan evokes the image of legendary Afghan men stirring up a dust storm while speeding across horsebacks through the deserts. Braving the difficulties of desert life, this country displays an amazing inter-mixing of cultures with the integration of people from other latitudes around the globe. Located in Central Asia, Afghanistan is a mountainous and land-locked country. The positioning of Afghanistan is often disputed with its cultural similarity to Middle East and Political connections to South Asia. Literally meaning the ‘Land of the Afghan’, this country experiences earthquakes in regular interval. The rugged terrain of this land reaches its peak at Nowshak with 7485 m (24,557 ft) above sea level.
Afghanistan has a long, splendid, and sometimes chaotic history and culture that goes back over 5000 years. Once it served as a gateway to the interiors of Asian landscape and the Aryans, Medes, Persians, Greeks, Mauryans, Kushans, Sassanians, Arabs, Turks, British and Soviets invaded Afghanistan in different periods of time. Following the Anglo-Afghan wars, Afghanistan gained full independence from British rule in 1919. After the bitter and brutal days of American-Soviet power struggle and extreme fundamentalism of Talibans, today, Afghanistan is on a road to recovering. Nowadays officially it is addressed as the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and proudly houses the UNESCO World Heritage site of Minaret of Jam.

Bande Amir Lake