We have laid out our trip from the very Eastern corner of Uzbekistan to the very West. And wherever possible we are trying to combine some nature time with city sightseeing. We decided to start our vacation with a four day horse riding trip in the Chimgan Mountains. Those mountains are in the very North Eastern part of UZ. About a two hrs car ride from Tashkent – depending on traffic it can be much more we were told.
After a simple but tasty breakfast of scrambled eggs, local bread called ‘non’ or ‘lepeshka’ with jam, very tasty fresh tomatoes and cucumbers as well as some black tea, Inom picked us up. He had told us to pack everything for the saddel bags to be watertight and not more than 20 liters. Which we quickly realized is not much. We minimalized as much as possible, packed evrything for the trip in watertight bags, including our sleeping bags and left the remainder of our luggage in the Guest House hold.
Tashkent rush hour at 9 AM is no different from any big city – and with a population of three million, Tashkent is the most populous city in Central Asia. Congested roads everywhere and it took us nearly an hour to even get out of the city. After another 90 minutes drive, we stopped in the middle of an unfinished highway. Thethered to some concrete road dividers were four small horses with some weird looking tack on them.
A very sturdy Kazagh was with them, a bear of a man, that for our western eye did not wear a scrap of horseriding gear as we know it. No helmet, no riding boots, sweat pants and a short whip. This was our first intro into a land that handled and kept horses very differently from Germany.
It took us a while to stuff our gear into our saddlebags as we not only had to carry our gear but also two tents, mats and all the food with us for the trip. Three Days of camping in the wilderness. One horseman, one guide and two adventurous Germans.
We discovered that all four horses were stallions. And learned that in UZ only stallions were ridden. The mares were solely for breeding. Esther got a gently looking, petite stallion, called Hussan, the size of a large pony. Chris got a beautiful white stallion called Haraz with very kind eyes.
Our horseman got an impressive looking young black stallion that was a cross between some kind of russian draft horse and a pony and was very muscular. As it was expected, they were all on the somewhat skinny side, but not too much so. They were well shod and did not show any signs of abuse or injuries.
The tack was something to get used to, a wooden saddle tree with a handle and side panels were placed on top of a series of blankets and strapped wit an overgirth only. There was a seat pad that looked like a piece of carpet and we were worried that we would be very sore after the first day. The seat was indeed very small, luckily we fitted in.
Stirrups or the length of them were another issue alltogether. Uzbeks are in general smaller than we and they ride with really short stirrups. Our stirrups had clearly not been changed for a long time and it took us a while to open the knots and adjust them to our length. Esther’s were fine, Chris‘ could not be lengthened long enough. He looked like a jockey on a small mount.
Bridles and bits will be described the next day. Off we went in beautful clear blue skies and sunshine. Riding over grassy knolls and ridges we headed out for several hours. Scattered little houses here and there and always little herds of sheep, goats, cattle or horses, many of them with young ones. The were roaming nearly free across the mountains.
We rode a total of seven hrs that day always up and down some hilside with beautiful views of the snow covered greater and smaller Chimgan mountain ranges.
Arriving finally quite tired at a little stream we set up camp for the night. Esther and Chris had a little two men tent (really little…) and our guides started to make a camp fire to boil water for tea and our food.
The horses had gone all day without water or food and we tried to convince our horseman Borat (yes like the Kazah Borat in the movie…) to first take care of the horses, unsaddle them, let them drink and graze, but he was very firm in his opinion that the horses needed to rest first, and should wait to be unsaddled and watered.
It was not until after dinner, which consisted of a delicious chicken stew, that he unsaddled the horses, then tehthered them each on a leash and one front leg to graze and only after two hrs, he led them to drink to the stream. The following days we tried to convince him otherwise, but he would not have anything for it. One can’t argue with thousand years of nomadic experience it seems.
We had a short dinner and as tired as we were rolled out the sleeping mats and our sleeping bags and went to bed.
