After a nice desert sunset and some local music on the camp fire the evening before, we had a short night on extremely hard yurt matresses, our bones were aching but a good breakfast at the Qizilkum Yurt camp. Maybe we should start taking our thermarest blow up matresses next time after all?
We decided that it would not be a desert vacation without a proper camel ride. We mounted our camels Nr. 12 and 25 (the camel guide told us the camels only had numbers not names).
Chris called his Fuchur (had the same white shock of hair on top of his head like the dragon from the movie: The Neverending Story) and I called mine Vokuhila as he had his fringe short in the front (VOrne KUrz) and hair long on his neck (HInten LAng).
Both were quite tall an in the middle of shedding their winter coat. So they looked a bit shaggy, but well fed and content. To sit on them when they get up or down ist a wobbly affair, but we managed just fine.
We booked a half day trek to the nearby Aydarkul Lake. In sedate pace we set out with our camel guide to ride through the deserty, dry areas for about 12 km. It was very peaceful and quiet. We saw a number of birds, bee eaters mostly, ground squirels that chased each other into their burrows, a turtoise looking curiously at us, a scared rabbit and some cheeky lizards.
Once arrived at the lake, Inom already waited for us with our luggage from the yurt camp. We were on top of a cliff overlooking the lake together with many local families as it was Sunday.
Turns out that on Sundays locals love taking out their entire family and book a table with a cooking space at this lookout spot. Our yurt camp also provided food and so we at on top of the cliffs, in a nice breeze, happily munching on some great salads and stuffed peppers.
We then wandered down to the beach which was Sandy and to our surpsise the water was fairly warm. Aydarkul Lake is a huge sweet water lake ideal for swimming and boating. As it was a bit out of the way of the normal tourist routes, we basically the only non Uzbek people here. We had a nice stroll on the beach before heading out on our way to Buchara.
Chris weasled his way to have Inom let him drive a while. As the road was dead straight and good quality, that was easy. As soon as the road got worse, Inom wanted to take the wheel again.
A couple of times we sverved around turtles trying to cross the road. We stopped once and helped two turtles to the other side after we saw that a big car nearly ran over one and made it spin on his shell. The poor creature.
After a little while we arrived in Nurata City on our way to Bukhara.
There are only a few things to see here so we stopped to strech our legs. One is the ruins of a once mighty fotress built by Alexander the Great of which only mud walls remain.
The other is the holy spring of Cashma where arrive on their pilgrimage to fill containers with holy water from the spring.
The water is very clean and many holy trout swim in it. For a few cents people buy empty 5 liter containers to take home as much holy water as they can carry. Quite a sight.
Our next road stop was some little known rocks that depicted again some tousands of years old petroglyphs showing camels, sheep and some people. Unfortunately due to zero protection, vanadals just scratch into the rocks as well, ignoring or even destroying the old images.
Finally in early evening we arrived in Bukhara. Another dual silk road city. More in our next days post.
We checked into our nice little guest house at the edges of the inner city and set out to enjoy an evening on a roof top terrace with beautiful views and a very nice sunset while sipping some cold white wine and listening to a surprisingly good quartett playing Uzbek traditional songs as well as some well known classics.
We are curious to explore more but it was a long day and we need the sleep on a nicer = softer matress.
