4 ~ Hello from The Nuratau Mountains, Uzbekistan

Hello from The Nuratau Mountains,

From Bukhara, we booked a two night excursion through the Nuratau Mountains, on the way to Samarkand, our final Uzbek destination. Unfortunately, on the day we left it was pouring rain, and it rained throughout the day until we got to our first stop, a Yurt camp in the desert, 150 miles from Bukhara. Along the way we passed the remains of the fortress of Alexander the Great, from 300 BC and stopped for a home-cooked lunch in a small town, our best meal yet. The 20 yurts in the camp could sleep up to 125 people, but on this cold, wet night, there were only us and three young ladies from Singapore. Most of the activities had been canceled due to the rain. But, the weather improved enough by nightfall to build a campfire and be entertained by a man and his children singing and playing an Uzbek stringed instrument that resembled a long neck lute.

One advantage of heavy rain in the desert is that sand doesn’t turn into mud when it gets wet. You can walk around in it and it doesn’t make a mess on your shoes and clothes. The inside of the yurt was nicely decorated with traditional weavings and heavy comforters, which we desperately needed. They had already converted the camp to summer operation by removing the wood stoves, but, on this cold night, they had to reinstall the stoves for the two occupied yurts. The stove heated the hurt nicely, but the wood didn’t last all night. And, it was a long cold walk, in the middle of the night, up the hill to the toilet. Oh, how “soft” we humans have become with our indoor toilets. By morning it was pretty nippy inside the dwelling, which had lots of cracks and holes to let in outside air.

The weather had cleared overnight and the 6:00 AM sunrise was a beautiful sight. There was still time for a camel ride before we left the camp. The camels they have here are mostly used for milk and wool. They are very hairy because the winters are very cold here and the wool is much softer than the sheeps wool we are used to. Camels are very expensive to own here, at a cost of about $1000 each. I was particularly interested in these camels because most of them are “two-hump” camels. To ride atop a “one-hump” camel you need some kind of saddle to straddle the hump. But, for a two-hump camel you only need a pad and stirrups between the humps. You hold on by grabbing the hair on the forward hump. It’s much more secure.

Ninety miles from the yurt camp we left the desert behind and entered a delightful little farming town called Sentyab, 2500 feet up in the mountains, with lots of trees and greenery. Our host there was a three generation family run guesthouse with several playful small children. We thought it was going to be an intimate Uzbek family experience until a tour group of Germans on a “walk about” showed up. They turned out to be nice people (if a bit loud) and we enjoyed talking to them.

The temperature was very cold (unusual for this time of year) with intermittent sunshine. The guesthouse had no heat and we ate our meals outside. We had every bit of our warm clothing on and were still cold. So, we decided to take some hikes in the mountains, between meals, to get our blood flowing. The food, except for the bread, was good and plentiful. The bread is so stale that it is mostly uneatable. I’m not sure but I think they just keep using the same bread, day after day until it is gone. No bread is ever discarded. I think it’s cultural. We’re still on a quest for that good Uzbek bread we read about. The coffee they served was instant Nescafé. Carol wasn’t too pleased with it. That night the lady running the guesthouse brought us a second comforter for the bed. It was desperately needed. I think this was the coldest night we have ever spent in our travels.

After the guesthouse, we were driven 140 miles to Samarkand, our last stop in Uzbekistan. This city has great historical value in the story of the area. It is full of huge Mosques , Madrassas, and Mausoleums that were mostly built or started in the 14th century by Amir Timur. Over the years they have been ransacked and restored by various governments. Lately the quality of the restorations has not been very good and its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site is in jeopardy. However, they are very impressive structures, with beautiful mosaic tiles covering the insides and outsides. But still, they use these beautiful, historic and religious sites as shopping malls for selling everything from carpets to trinkets. The parable about “throwing the money changers out of the Temple” doesn’t apply here. I guess Mohammad didn’t get the memo.

The weather finally warmed up to a comfortable range which made walking around he old city more fun. Every day in the main square bread “rounds” are sold by elder ladies pushing big wheeled carts overloaded with the “fresh cooked” breads. They are so fresh that they are too hot to hold when you first buy one (as we found out the hard way). They haven’t been out of he oven for very long. We watched a lady spill a half dozen of them off her cart, onto the ground and then run over a couple of them as she wheeled them down the square. She then just wipe them all off with a towel and put them back on top ready to sell. They are pretty indestructible.

And YES, we did find the sought after delicious bread we were looking for. We bought a loaf (for only 37 cents) and started eating it immediately. The bread was warm and delicious. It was very dense and tasted like a giant warm bagel with a thin covering over the hole. They are cooked in giant Tandor ovens where they stick the dough on the side wall of the oven and then fish it out, after baking, with a long stick. After eating about half of our giant round bread, we had had enough and couldn’t eat any more. We read that bread is sacred here and is never wasted. So we wrapped it carefully in a bag and surreptitiously discarded it in a trash can, so as to not be discovered by the “bread police.”

On April 20th something wonderful happened here. All of the beautiful fountains started up. It’s so nice, while walking around a city, to pass by a fountain. They drown out the traffic noise, cool the air when it’s hot and promote a calming relaxing feeling around the city. We should have more fountains in our cities.

Catching a very early morning high speed train, we headed back to Tashkent for our last day in Uzbekistan. Tashkent is Seattle’s sister city. Back in the early 1980’s, during the Cold War, Seattle school children crafted 10,000 ceramic tiles with personal inscriptions as a gesture of peace with to Soviet Union. Thirty people traveled here to install them into an exhibit called “The Peace Park.” It was a little hard to locate, but we managed to find it on our last day here. Sadly, it has been left to rot. Many of the tiles are broken or falling off and the weeds have grown up all around them. The grounds have not been maintained for many years. I wondered if any of those school children had ever traveled here to see their tile?

On our last evening here we went to the Circus. It permanently operates in a huge old domed stadium that was state of the art when it was built, but hasn’t seen any maintenance since. The performers are mostly Russian and the performance did not disappoint. There is a picture in our photo gallery that you won’t believe of The finally act they performed. Check it out. The shows are held every weekend and change monthly. Before the show and during intermission, children (even babies) are harnessed in and swing around the “ring” on cables that pull them high up near the ceiling. It looks like they will all collide at some point, but none ever do. You can get your picture taken with a Boa Constrictor hanging on your shoulders or holding a small monkey. For three hours we were entertained by all the typical kinds of circus acts of yesteryear. It was like stepping back in time. The kind of thing that can not operate in the USA because of liability risk. However, we have found that stepping back and taking a little risk once in a while, when traveling in foreign countries, can be very rewarding.

That’s it for Uzbekistan. I have added some pictures of the things I’ve mentioned here in the photo gallery if you care to take a look. Next stop is across the Caspian Sea to Baku, Azerbaijan.

If you haven’t seen Carol’s latest blog about our trip, check it out. She’s putting the finishing touches on a new entry right now:

https://carolapucci-tips.blogspot.com/2018/04/on-road-to-samarkand-camels-yurts-and.html

Later…… your favorite travelers, Tom and Carol