The exhuast from the four engines of a C-130 cargo plane is hot enough to cook flesh.

As you exit the cargo ramp, the exhaust has cooled down to a 150 degree 70 mile per hour wind.

As I walked out the exhaust blast I discovered the rest of FOB Fenty in Jalalabad felt just as hot.  

Jalalabad is one of the hottest places in Afghanistan in the summer but has a mild winter climate.

It is a sprawling city of concrete, mudbrick and dust at the confluence of the Kunar and Kabul rivers, is the dominant city in Nangarhar province. 

Jalalabad and Kabul river

Alexander the Great's army massed near Jalalabad before his invasion of the Indus valley in modern day Pakistan.

The Kabul river valley is a lush green spreading for miles on either side of the river.  The fertile green valley is contrasted by the barren rock and sand of the mountains climbing up to 1,600 meter peaks

The fertile valley bumps into the sparce valley

There is more air transport in Afghanistan than Iraq due to the lack of a true highway system.  Iraq was connected by several four-lane and even six-lane highways.

In Afghanistan a superhighway is anything with asphalt.  Hence cargo and personnel being transported on ring routes flown by C-130s and contract air services.

FOB Fenty is the home of Task Force Mountain Warrior which works Nangarhar, Lagham, Nuristan and Kunar provinces.

My final destination is Mehtar Lam in Lagham province.

Mehtar Lam sits at the downstream convergence of the Alingar and Alishang valleys.

Alinghar

The city is a maze of curving streets, courtyards, compounds and multi-story buildings that makes Fallujah look like was designed by a master architect.

The trabal make up of the area is mostly Ghilzai Pashtun.  The Ghilzai are the #2 tribe in Afghanistn after the Durrani tribe.

The US base at Mehtar Lam is HQ to the 1-221 Cav., an Army National Guard unit from Las Vegas.  The 1-221's battlespace covers nearly all of Lagham province.

There is very little in the literature on Afghanistan about Lagham.  In a backwater of a country, Lagham is a backwater province.

What I do know for sure is that it is 10 degrees cooler in Mehtar Lam than it is in Jalalabad and I've heard tell of the tiny little outpost up the river where it is even 10 degrees cooler.

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