SITTING,WAITING,WISHING

After a 24 hours back breaking ride with the local transport, where the driver decided to have a nap just after 20 hours of driving non-stop, we happily made it to Khorog, the main city along the Pamir Highway .

Just looking around you can see why the locals call this area “The roof of the world”.Impressive snowed peaks everywhere will be our travel companions for the next few days. Transportation in this area it's quite hard to get and very overpriced, due to not really clever tourist, coming in here for a short holidays and paying the outrageous amounts of money that they ask for, just for taking you from A to B, and not thinking that the normal salary in here goes around the 30 USD per month.Not willing to pay those sums that will for sure crumble our budget for the rest of our trip, we decide for the “always” working way of sticking our thumps out and hope for the best.

Unfortunately many drivers in Tajikistan do not believe in free rides for tourists, and after a few changes of car and paying small sums of money we made to the next significant town, Jelandy, which is already 4000m high and no more than ten houses can be counted…

A perfect stop for truck drivers, called Sanatorium, famous for having hot springs in their installations, will be the perfect spot to treat ourselves after a nice but hard to breath trek in the surrounding mountains.

Next morning, after the always working watery coffee that they serve for breakfast, you can go to the triple pit toilet to have a dump, where after the first embarrassing moments can be the perfect place to start a morning conversation with the other two people already there.

That same day we get to know some of the locals, whose offer us some food and tea after observing us sitting, waiting, wishing for a car passing with enough space and willing to take us.“Tomorrow Insh’allah” is what they say to us, so after spending another night soaking in the thermal baths we manage to get a “cheap” ride through an impressive scenery , where no vegetation can be seen, only rocks, snows, marmots and nomad yurts along the way to Murgab, our next destination.

BACK TO BASICS

As we smoke our last water pipe of Uzbekistan and hear the " wonderful " experiences of one of those " my trip is much better and interesting than yours " travellers trying to pick up a girl in our home stay in Samarkand; we plan our next move to visit the Fan mountains in Tajikistan.
Again by foot, and having the snowed peaks as our goal in front of us we crossed the border and got a ride with the last of our Uzbeck currency to the city of Penjikent.
After walking around the city, we appreciate no difference with their neighbour country, except the language, this one coming from the Farsi and how locals still do not accept that their capital cities , Samarkand and Buhara are not part anymore of their country.

Buying all the necessary and hoping for good weather we set off to the mountains, where we expect to camp for a few days surrounded by 5000 m peaks.
Our backpacks are heavy with food, as we load them on top of the mashurtna ( mini-van) where more than 25 people squeeze each other in the place for 6 and some them stare our boots with more interest than our cameras!
The mountains welcomed us with some rain the first day on the way up to Kunikalon lake, where in some steep slopes we have the feeling that our boots are much heavier than they actually are; maybe the 15 kg in our backpacks are the reason why...
Impressive walls full of snow around our tent are enough reason to drop our mouths open but as well to switch back to basics and make us think in going to fetch some wood before the cold night arrives.
We are definitely closer to the stars...as we look at them in the closed night but as well we are to the hot sun above us next morning, so we jumped into the icy lake and realized later at night, that we should not forget the sun-block cream in our next visit t the high altitudes.
After four days it is time for us to head back to civilization, get a shower and sort out some permit needed to cross the Pamir Highway, again more bureaucracy!!
In the long way down the mountains we chat with some locals who climb these mountains every day to load their donkeys with wood while the impressively strong animals bray loudly to break the quietness in the valley.

Hitching a ride in an old soviet truck to the capital, Dushanbe, we crossed through the scary unfinished tunnel that the Chinese are building to avoid the Anzob pass high above. Inside it we realize that there is no way that this huge terrible scar in the mountain is gonna be finished in 2009 as planned.

PEARLS OF THE SILK ROAD

Samarkand, Buhara and Khiva do not let you down in your expectations of their beauty. Like open books, these cities talk about history of ancient times as you get lost in their mud brick streets or observe the detailed carving in the walls of the Registan.

Great cities of old kingdoms since the time of Alexander the Great, they were caprices of great kings like Timur Leng, who decided to make of them pure architectural master classes; or conquerors like Genghis Khan who overwhelmed for their beauty decided to change his usual way of destroying to conquer and keep them as pearls of the vast territory he ruled.

Nowadays, these cities are main attractions for tourism and hordes of it arrive everyday in their hired buses which unload them to take photos of every single corner, where locals with turbans and wrinkled faces have learnt to make a living being the perfect subject to have in the photos of your exotic holidays in Uzbekistan...

Searching tranquility we reached the plateau of Fergana Valley, a rural region surrounded by impressive Kyrgyz snowed peaks, where crossing from one part of some villages to the other can be the difference between being a tourist in Uzbekistan or an illegal immigrant in Kyrgyzstan without papers if you do not have the visa for this last one.

After enjoying its amazing local bread, the fresh vegetables, learning a bit about the hand made silk production and specially laugh and enjoy the hospitality of the villagers of Nanay, it is time for us to go back to Tashkent and collect our awaited visas for Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and have a closer look of the mountains now far in the horizon.