A stay in Pakistan's remote Ishkoman Valley, where humans still consult fairies

I took a 650km motorcycle ride to this traveller's hostel, where activities include lazing with sheep, enjoying Pakistani hospitality and visiting shamans who can learn your fate.

I scramble up a scree-covered slope, trying to keep pace with a flock of woolly white sheep, each wobbly step triggering a mini landslide below us. Unfazed, the sheep charge on, navigating the precarious cliffside as if by memory and leading me like seasoned guides to an overlook.

They halt abruptly and begin to graze. I catch my breath and look out across Northern Pakistan's Ishkoman Valley, framed by snow-capped peaks and cut through by pale glacial stream. Pale pink cherry blossom trees line the narrow switchbacks, descending to Coyote Den Ishkoman Hostel – my pastoral mountain retreat for this week, where I'm trekking high peaks and conferring with a female shaman who is said to speak with fairies.

To reach the high-altitude Ishkoman Valley in Pakistan's Gilgit-Baltistan region, I had planned a 650km (403 mile) journey from Islamabad, trading the capital's traffic and smog for open skies.

Bordering Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor, Ishkoman is one of Pakistan's least-visited mountain regions. Travellers seeking quick access usually take a short (if notoriously unreliable) flight into Gilgit, followed by a four-to-five hour taxi ride. The overland bus journey can take more than 20 hours. But for savouring Pakistan's wildly diverse scenery, there's nothing like hitting the open road.

I rented a 150cc phool patti motorcycle covered in technicoloured truck-art designs for the three-day mountain journey, navigating out of Islamabad's grid-like streets before speeding north on the Karakoram Highway. The Karakoram – the world's highest paved international roadway – follows the trail of the ancient Silk Road, soaring over the turquoise Indus River far below. From Besham City to Chilas and onward to the northern gateway of Gilgit, exposed cliffside highways revealed snow-capped jagged peaks behind each hairpin bend, including the dominating 8,126m (26,660ft) face of Nanga Parbat.

After the brimming bazaars of Gahkuch, the road narrowed to a single ribbon of tarmac, following the undulating terrain into the remote reaches of Ishkoman Valley. For three days, I had stopped only to take photos, sleep at roadside guesthouses and share steaming cups of chai with uniformed officers at police checkpoints. Finally in Chatorkhand, I walked wearily through the wooden gates of Coyote Den.

Since arriving, I've spent countless hours wandering the grounds, sheep in tow, and picking persimmons with Sana Marwat and Alex Reynolds, co-owners of the sprawling property – conceived as a budget-friendly "traveller's hostel" for wanderers and bikers. 

"Ishkoman is famous for its masonry," says Reynolds. "The wood used in our construction was all sourced from local pine and poplar trees, and the stones taken from nearby waterways." The result is a collection of stone cottages dispersed throughout a rose-filled garden. Panes of stained glass cap the windows, colourful local rugs adorn the walls and dinner is always served family-style in the mud-walled dining room.

Though the key word here is relaxation, visitors can also trek from nearby Nalter back to Ishkoman Valley. "It's a three-to-four day, 45km (28 mile) traverse, including the 4,700m (15,420ft) Pakora Pass and a glacier crossing," Reynolds says.

This very isolation is one of Ishkoman's key allures. 

"We chose to build Coyote Den in Ishkoman because it's one of the most untouched parts of the Northern Mountains," Reynolds explains. "The community here is also, as a whole, quite highly educated and therefore more open-minded and tolerant." Mountain life is also more pragmatic, with both women and men working outside the home on farms. A majority of the valley's population is Ismaili Muslim, a branch of Shia Islam that places particular emphasis on the mystical interpretations and rich inner meanings of the faith.

Sipping sweet, homemade red wine, I relax into my floor cushion in the chid, a traditional Pakistani gathering room. The rapid beating of the dadang drum and soulful reverb of the rubab's strings fill the room as a handful of local men swirl in circles performing, not for my benefit, the Dani Hareep dance of the region. Without reliable Wi-Fi or television, I embrace the local way of winding down – an evening of laughter and exuberant traditional dance.

Within this particular religious climate a woman known as Rashida, a female shaman who speaks with fortune-telling mountain fairies, is one of the community's most popular residents. Tomorrow, with the help of the Coyote Den crew, I will pay her a visit.

The next morning, I pile into Marwat's dusty truck bed for the 20-min drive across the river and up the mountain to Rashida's home. Locals have been visiting her family for generations, but Marwat says hostel guests also love dropping by.

In local Chitrali folklore, predating the spread of Islam in the region, peris (fairies) are incandescent, winged beings who exist between the human and divine worlds. Shamans were traditionally believed to communicate with them and seek their guidance. Although the tradition has declined sharply over the past century, with few practitioners believed to remain, the two belief systems continue to co-exist – at least the steady flow of devout Muslims filtering in and out of Rashida's home seems to see no contradictions in seeking advice from the mystical realm. 

Sitting at a small table in her mud-walled home, eyes fixed on a mirror pinned high on the otherwise bare wall, Rashida prepares to relay answers from the peris. By her own telling, she acts as an intermediary between the human and supernatural worlds.

With Marwat and Coyote Den guide Hakim Ulluh translating, I pepper Rashida with my burning questions – painstakingly relayed through a telephone game of languages. "Ishkoman Valley alone has 10 spoken languages," Marwat explains. "Khowar or Chitrali is the most common here, and it's entirely different from Urdu, Pakistan's national language."

From Khowar (Rashida) to Urdu (Ulluh) and Urdu to English (Marwat) and back again, we examine my future.

Where will I end up when I finally stop bouncing from country to country? (New Zealand, apparently.) Should change my career? (No.) Will I divorce my beloved husband one day? (Thankfully, also no.)

After four slow days of hammock lounging, riverside strolls with the sheep and sipping milky, mountain-style chai beneath the property's mulberry tree, Reynolds and I set out to explore the valley on foot.

As we climb the loose cliffside towards the Dain waterfall, she extolls her love of Pakistan and explains how she has worked within the boundaries of tradition and religion to create a business that empowers women.

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"Half of the staff at Coyote Den are women, which is quite unusual in a region where women don't have [paid] jobs outside of the home," she explains. "We give them a flexible working schedule so they can go home in the middle of the day to take care of their kids' lunches, and we make sure they don't have to work at all after sunset, unless absolutely necessary."

I step across the rushing, glacial-fed Ishkoman River on the narrow wooden plank bridge, the breadth of the valley sprawling out in front of me. I had come to Pakistan seeking adventure and instead found myself craving solitude. Somewhere in this remote valley on the ancient Silk Road, it came to me.

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