Nurata Mountains

Decided not to stop for so long in Samarkand and instead ventured off on an impromptu trip with Ilaria, one of the travellers from the caravanseri in Bukhara to the Nurata region. Getting out of the city meant haggling with 10 loud shared taxi drivers as they all crowded around us, arguing with each other. It took 20 minutes to come to a reasonable price after two of them went back on their original price once we got in. After getting to Jizzakh we decided hitchhiking was probably much easier and one car by one we inched towards the small village of Sentyab, 300km from Samarkand. Despite the many rides, people seemed to stop instantly and be happy to help, it was also a great chance to practice my still very limited Russian over the long rides through the endless straight road.

Walking through the small tranquil village, people were exceptionally friendly and often stopped to wave and chat. It felt very different to the rest of Uzbekistan that I had seen, the steep valley walls towered above us and everything was green and full of life. We camped further up the valley by the river in a secluded wood, it was a peaceful paradise that we didn't want to leave, so much that we changed our plans to hike across the mountain range and left everything there to explore the local region more. Surprisingly, most people were Tajik and spoke a completely different language. Many people also were living self sufficiently, making kefir, butter and bread which they happily shared with us, along with tea on multiple occasions.

The next day was spent hiking up to a lake 10Km up the valley into the "Extreme Tourism" area, the crystal clear mountain lake we had been dreaming of swimming turned out to be more of a bog, but seeing hundreds of horses run around us definitely made for a special day. Following questionable online route instructions with a non existent path on the way down we got stuck at a dead end on the edge of a cliff, looking up, we saw vultures circling us, it felt pretty... extreme... Not feeling like attempting this new route across the cliffs 2 hours before dark we tried to find the way back the way we came where we were helped by a shepherd back to the path. Arriving after dark we found the two Swiss cyclists (Zora and Phillipe) we had met in the morning, had pitched next to our tent. Not so much time to spend together as it was late and we were only thinking about eating food after a long day. We would end up meeting more in the future in Tajikistan after they sold their bikes and carried on their journey in a Lada Niva.

We walked back to the main road with the howling wind, failing to find any lift. Our aim was to make it to the next valley along, Hayot then hike along to yet another valley. We were eventually given a lift by a lively Kazakh man and his friend in his tiny car most of the way. The hike was scenic and tranquil but was much longer than expected, we only made it onto the top of the pass by dark and had to walk down into the next valley with our headtorches.

A little lost we looked around for a place to sleep, approaching a farm where dogs wouldn't stop barking at us. A girl came out and shyly said to us "Chai?". Of course we accepted and came inside to find a huge family packed into a tiny room, the girl that invited us in, only about 15 had two small children of her own. They were incredibly poor but insisted that we eat their food, not accepting our refusal. I felt guilty doing so and it was a little awkward not being able to communicate with anybody, they only spoke Tajik and we had no internet to use google translate. Leaving them some money behind, we left and camped outside a nearby guesthouse who also gave us dinner and breakfast, refusing to take any money for doing so. People are so incredibly kind here and it blows me away.

Getting back to Samarkand was a giant headache. A family separated by gender in two cars gave us a lift with one of us squeezed into each and a giant communication barrier between us. They took a crazy route and we failed to notice the detour we were taking and failed further to stop them and let us get out to go back the faster way. In the end we were dropped off in a village just as far as where we started and gave in and got a shared taxi the rest of the way back, giving myself an hour to see Samarkand. By this point I was pretty tired of touristy attractions and had felt i had seen enough mausoleums now.

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