The hotel’s breakfast service started at 0800 and like other places, it takes about 45 mins to prepare omelette, toast and tea.
Today is a big day as we will finally meet Lana, a first cousin of Kim and Jo that they had found relatively late in their lives. They had never met and our attempt to visit in the year 2000 was upset by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Lana picked us up and took us for a drive on Sea View Rd, running along Clifton Beach. She then brought us to her home and we spent about 2h getting to know each other.
We continued this over a big and delicious late lunch at the Karachi Gymkhana Club. We learnt so much about her life as a child.
Her mother Pamela was Kim and Jo’s father’s sister and she operated a circus with her husband. Lana and her siblings performed with other human and animal performers (including elephants).
They moved around Pakistan by truck and she never attended school. She only learnt to read and write from her Pakistani husband after marriage. Since then, she had lived in Pakistan, England, USA and Canada.
We also learnt about life in Karachi. For their relatively posh area, there is no tap water supply even though the infrastructure exists and they are billed regularly for it by the cantonment board! Instead, they have to buy water which is trucked in periodically.
She dropped us home about 1800. With a late and satisfying lunch, we skipped dinner and snacked a little before bed. We had bought some mangoes and I cut them up only to discover that they were rather strange in flavour with a strong salty tinge. Still edible though.