A convoy of cars, their roof racks piled high with boxes and bags, inches along the hairpin bends of the mountain road, passing men on foot bent double under the weight of sacks of belongings. As they near their destination, passengers point at piles of rubble where their homes stood before the Pakistani earthquake ripped them apart six months ago and contemplate the huge task of rebuilding their lives that lies ahead.
They are among tens of thousands who fled to the safety of refugee settlements and are returning to their villages, many reluctantly, after a government decision to close the camps this weekend.
The closure could not have come at a worse time for Jamela, who has six children. She was nine months pregnant when she was told of a truck going back to her village of Kerry Saddat, 1,829m up in the remote Siran Valley, and that she and her family would have to leave.
She liked the camp -- it provided them with shelter, food, a school and hospital. She knew she was going back to nothing.
Three days after returning, Jamela, 35, gave birth to her daughter Tabasum in a tent in front of a pile of bricks and broken timber once their home. Cuddling her baby, she pointed to the timber frame of their new house being built by her husband, Inayat Ali Shah.
Work had stopped because he had run out of materials.
"We were far more comfortable in the camp," she said. "Everything was there. My husband and son had typhoid when we arrived and they were treated. Everything was destroyed here and it was coming up to winter so the army sent us away."
"The tremors that have come since the earthquake are much more frightening up here. I made a lot of friends from other areas and I miss them. We said we would visit each other, but it's hard. I can't write, so it's difficult to stay in touch. It is very empty here. We lost many relatives and neighbors. All of the 35 houses collapsed," she said.
At the mention of the earthquake, her 12-year-old daughter Wahida's face crumples, her body racked with sobs.
There has been much resistance among inhabitants to the closure of the 148 camps six months after the Oct. 8 quake, which killed 75,000 people and made millions more homeless. The sites were managed by the army and some of the soldiers cried as they broke the news of the closure. The government argues it is necessary to prevent people becoming so dependent on handouts that the camps will never shut.
Many of the aid agencies in the relief effort agree.
The region's mayor, Sardar Muhammad Yousaf, said: "People must go back to begin rehabilitation. This is the right time of year to start rebuilding and replanting crops. The monsoon rain comes in July and then the winter sets in. It is a short window of time."
"We don't want people to get used to living in camps. The district [government] cannot bear the burden in the long run," he said.
It is an argument that even Jamela concedes.
"I'd rather have stayed, but I know we couldn't live there forever. If we hadn't left now we'd have had to stay for another year. It is difficult, because we have to start again from nothing -- even our one goat ran off during the earthquake," she said.
One camp will remain open to take care of the vulnerable: the wounded, widowed and those who have nowhere to go because they lost land in landslides.
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