Another great hike

Here are some pictures of our hike last weekend. Just a few here, but you can click the link at the bottom to see more in better quality. For this hike, we headed in the same direction as the last one, but turned off before the cliffside road and drove through a quaint little village and then hiked a more moderate trail through a gorge, following a rapidly running river and crossing rickety wooden bridges. At some points, we could just make out the snow capped mountains we had seen previously, off in the distance.

We stopped for lunch in a nice area next to the river. It was a really nice day.

On the way back to Dushanbe, clouds were moving in and it actually rained a little - a rare occurance this time of year - and we felt like we were in a parade as we passed back through the village, everyone was waving and many people greeted us. Once we have our car up and running, Stephanie and I would like to go back and visit with the locals a bit. It was a very nice hike and it was good to get up to a slightly higher elevation as it was cooler than in the city. The weather has gotten warmer again and temperatures have been in the mid-90s most days. I'm sure in the dead of winter we'll wish for warmer weather, but right now, a chilly breeze sounds wonderful.

As promised, here is the full album for those interested:

Hiking 092009 JPGS

Till next time...

Our House

Here's a quick rundown of the weekend, and then... the long awaited pictures of our home. Not really too much to report. We're still stocking up on produce for winter - this weekend it was apples, raspberries, and beet greens. It's a lot of work to freeze all this stuff, but I think it will be worth it. On the way home from the bazaar, we discovered a little bakery a few doors down from our house that sells cookies and looking cakes. That ought to put an end to my weight loss!

We're also stocking up on chickens, but the more important story is that on the way to the store to buy some, the wind kicked up and suddenly we were bombarded by giant nuts falling the sky (go ahead and get your laughs out before continuing). Actually, they were falling from the trees, but they were hitting the ground really hard - it sounded like gun shots. Kinda scary, but fortunately neither of us were hit. Saturday afternoon, before my third Hash, I made a really good pizza out of a small flat loaf of local bread, some leftover sauce that Stephanie made earlier in the week, cheese and salami from the grocery store. I have to say, aside from Stephanie's homemade pizza, it was the best I've had since leaving NYC.

As mentioned, I had my third Hash on Saturday afternoon. For a change I wasn't worried about falling off a cliff, and it was a good run. We started from a small neighborhood and our group attracted a large crowd of children who ended up running along with us and having a really good time. It was a lot of fun. We had a beer break in the middle of the run on top of a hill with beautiful views of the countryside. The only downside was that the circle went on forever after the run and I was starving. Fortunately, dinner was delicious and worth the wait.

On Sunday, Stephanie and I went on another hike, but I will have to post that story later with pictures. On to the tour of our house!

DISCLAIMER... Stephanie has asked that I clearly point out that the furniture, curtains, wallpaper, and large carpets are not of our choosing, they came with the house. That said let's begin...

We live at 69 Mirzo Tursunzade - this is our front gate. Very sturdy. Very secure. When the trench is gone and we have our car, we'll be able to park it inside.

Here's the house.

First stop is the front porch, where we've set up a breakfast nook for the weekends.

Then it's on into the living room.

From the living room, the first door is the dining room, the second is the kitchen, and the third is the basement.

First, the dining room - we're looking forward to trying out our china in here.

Now on to the kitchen... plenty of space!

Next, down to the basement, where we've set up our little store of commodities. There is also an extra freezer, which we're putting to good use. There are two other rooms about the same size as this, so there's more than enough room for storage.

Back upstairs, across from the kitchen is the downstairs bathroom, which is actually two rooms...

One has the toilet

And the other has the shower.

Heading up to the second floor, we found a good place to showcase some of the items we've collected over the years.

Moving down the hall, the first door on the right is the guest room.

Then our bedroom.

At the end of the hall is the library...

Which opens onto our upstairs breakfast nook/game room.

Heading back down the hall way, the office is across from our bedroom. I have a desk in here as well, but it isn't really set up.

Next, across from the guest room is the bathroom.

I have to take a moment to point out our futuristic shower.

And the sea-foam green counter top with rainbow sparkles...

There's one more set of stairs where we've displayed some more artwork...

Which leads to our attic room.

So far it's been too hot to really use the attic room, but it should be nice and bright in winter. There are certainly nice views.

That's pretty much everything except for the sauna, which is in an out building. It's also too hot for that, but I'm looking forward to using it in the cold weather. Hope you've enjoyed our little tour.

End of a Long Week, Beginning of A Long Weekend

So here it is, finally Friday, and what a week. My computer up and decided to die on me on Thursday so I had to reboot to factory setting. At least it worked and I was able to back up my files, but it's a pain to have to reinstall everything I had on there. Work has just crazy busy in general with the end of the fiscal year, but today in particular was rough.

I had a lease renegotiation go bad - the guy wanted to double, yes, double the monthly rent for his house! Obviously can't be doing that with the taxpayer's $$$ so spent a chunk of the day working on a plan B in case this guy wants to play it tough when we meet again. I was really ticked off at the time, but now that I have it figured out I'm feelin' pretty good about it. Dude's gonna learn he's barking up the wrong American.

The rest of the day was pretty much random madness but there was a bright spot... I now have the keys to a car, and it's sitting in the embassy parking lot! The sale isn't quite final and I still have to get it registered with diplomatic plates, but if all goes well, we'll be driving around Dushanbe in a Mitsubishi Pajero within a couple weeks. Small enough to fit down Dushanbe's crazy streets, but with 4WD to get out of town.

Plan for tonight is to watch The Hangover at the marine house - assuming Stephanie can finish her work in time - and then we kick off a long weekend. Monday is a holiday for Ramazan (I'm not sure why, but this is what they call Ramadan here). I'm hoping to do the hash and a hike this weekend so I'm sure stories will come from that and maybe some pictures.

Nick

Random Thoughts

I thought I was going to have great news today - that we finally bought a car. Unfortunately, nothing is so simple here in Dushanbe. The woman selling the car was missing one important document and our motor pool supervisor (who will have to register the car) will need it to get us our diplomatic plates. All hope is not lost, however, the woman is supposed to come back on Friday with all the paper work, and hopefully we can move forward.

Even if we can buy the car, it will still be awhile before we can drive it since we will have to wait to get the diplomatic registration and even after that, we will need the trench in front of our house to be filled in so that we can park in the driveway. It looks like they're starting to do it but I'm not holding my breath for a quick resolution.

I can't say I'm chomping at the bit to drive either. Sure it will be easier to not have to rely on the embassy shuttle or 'public transportation'. I mean, it's great so far as that you can ride the bus here for a little over a dime, but then again, one of my colleagues had her phone stolen out of her purse while I was standing next to her. Violent crime is pretty rare here, but pickpocketing appears to be something of an art.

But back to why I'm not so eager to drive. The people here are crazy - pedestrians walk out into the middle of the street, traffic laws are more like 'guidelines', there are lanes in some places, but no one drives in them, and as I've mentioned earlier, red lights don't mean much. It doesn't help that before a red light turns green, the yellow light comes on with the red to tell you that it's about to be green -and most people just take that to mean 'go'. Defensive driving is definitely the name of the game.

The other thing is that people love their horns in Dushanbe. They honk if you stop at a red light, if they see someone walking on the sidewalk, if they want to turn into oncoming traffic, they honk if the sun is shining or if a bird flies by. I often see them honking after an obstruction is passed - say a pedestrian steps out into traffic, the driver will swerve around them and then honk several minutes later - maybe out of relief?

The other day, walking home from the supermarket, I heard someone honking and it sounded like it was right behind me, but I was on the sidewalk. When I finally turned around, it was a guy on a bike who had wired an electric car horn to the handlebars of his bike. Excuse me for being a little slow when I'm carrying over two pounds of meat, 5 bags of frozen veggies, a 10 lb bag of flour, a 4-pack of yogurt, 2lbs of pelmeni (Russian dumplings), 2 chickens, a turkey, and a pheasant! We're stocking up our freezer in case you were wondering.

Also during that shopping trip, I found some interesting flavors of potato chip to try - roast chicken, sour cream and dill, shashlik (kind of a kebab), and caviar. Will let you know how they taste when I try them.

And of course despite the car thing not quite working out for now, the day wasn't a total loss. We tried to play tennis with some friends at the embassy tennis court after work -I say tried because none of us really knows how to play. To add even more excitement, there was a false duck & cover alarm after Stephanie arrived so I had to spend some time on the floor of my office and she ended up hunkering down in a bathroom. Again, totally a false alarm, so it was just good practice, but it sure gets your pulse racing all the same.

After our attempt at tennis, our friends introduced us to a Chinese restaurant in the northern part of the city that was very good. Best of all, despite stuffing myself, I feel fine - which I take as a sign that I'm fully recovered!

Lastly, for now, we had all of our pictures hung up today so I will try to send out pictures of our home by the end of the weekend, now that it is complete.

Nick

First Hike In Tajikistan

I made it through the work day and am finally starting to feel better. I may actually try to eat something tonight.

But what I think you'll enjoy more than my stories of digestive disturbances is seeing pictures of Sunday's hike. The ones here are just a sample, click the link at the bottom of the post to see more with better quality.

We arrived at the meeting place at about 8:15 am and learned that one of my colleagues was driving his jeep so we hopped in with him. In short order we were off on our first foray outside of Dushanbe itself. We headed north on a well-paved highway - it was well-paved at first anyway - and enjoyed seeing the little settlements scattered on the narrow bank of the river that runs into the city. The bank is narrow because of the steep, rocky hills that rise up on either side.

As mentioned, it wasn't too long before the road wasn't so nice. The Chinese are building tunnels along the way to protect the road from avalanches and landslides. This will be great when finished, but in the meantime, it forces drivers to go around along single-lane, rock-strewn paths. On the way out it was early enough that we didn't have too much trouble, but on the way back we found ourselves playing chicken more than once.

After awhile we turned off and took a break before beginning our tricky ascent into the mountains. I had been aching to take some pictures and this was my first chance. The surrounding hills were becoming mountains and we saw two boys with a donkey.

Before I continue, funny story with no picture. When we got out, it seems that my yellow t-shirt attracted some bees because suddenly I was covered with them. I remained calm and walked around slowly until they went away. Then I quickly put on my fleece to discourage any future association with flowers. Then we got a little held up because some guy didn't fill up his gas tank before he left Dushanbe and had to go back down the road to find some. Gas stations aren't exactly widespread outside of the cities.

But getting back to the trip, we finally were on our way again and from this point the roads varied from roughly paved to cratered dirt and they wound up the mountainside edging along steep cliffs. In some places the roads narrowed so much that I wasn't sure all four of our wheels could fit. But the views were spectacular. Here are a few shots from our second stretch point.

We also drove past pretty primitive-looking villages with stone buildings where they stack their hay on the roof for insulation, as well as to save it for the animals. Unfortunately I couldn't get any pictures from the bumpy moving jeep. It took us 3 hours (30 minutes of that attributed to the idiot with no gas) to reach the end of the road and the beginning of the hike. And it really was the end of the road, there was no more.

Some quick background info -Dushanbe sits at about 3000 feet and the drive took us up to just shy of 10,000 feet. The hike took us all the way up to 12,500 feet. Even from the beginning of the hike, the scenery was great. It was much greener here than in Dushanbe thanks to continuing snow melt and everywhere you looked, there were these amazing snowy mountain peaks. At this altitude, the temperature was much cooler. Where we still have highs in the 80s in Dushanbe, I think it was only about 50 where we started the hike. The summit was definitely below freezing. Fortunately there were few bees around, because the exertion of the hike had me in my t-shirt up until the very end.

The pace was pretty brisk and with the altitude it was a lot of work, but it was so rewarding. A shutterbug's paradise. As a group we hiked across streams, up hills, along little goat trails, and across plains to reach a pair of beautiful lakes.






We only ascended about 600 feet to the lakes and a few people stayed behind to rest while the rest of us continued up the remaining 1900 feet to the pass. The mountains rose up around us and the snow got closer and closer until we were actually crossing it from time to time. I even saw a snow marmot, which was very cool.

Just before the summit, we stopped for lunch, I finished off the dried fruit and bread I had been snacking on, and our guide provided us with hot tea and cookies, which really helped. This is where I finally had to put on the fleece due to the cold. Then, finally it was time to make the last surge up the mountain. The last bit was definitely the hardest. We walked up a steep snowfield that was very slippery and even more difficult thanks to the high altitude.

But I think you'll agree from the pictures that the view was totally worth it. Just amazing.

The hike down was, of course, much easier than the way up. And it was neat to see the view from a different angle.


The only downside was that my heals had developed rather painful blisters since I chose this hike to break in my hiking boots.

Down at the bottom, I snapped a picture of Steph with an old Tajik man she met and had bread with before we piled into the jeep to head home.

The drive home was uneventful except for the encounters with large trucks on the mountainside roads I told you about, and of course the games of chicken on the tunnel 'bypasses' that threatened to land us in the river.

By 7:30 we were back at home and ready for bed! Again, I only put a few pictures in here and they aren't the best quality, so definitely check out this link to see the good stuff.

Hike 090609 JPGS

Hope you enjoy!

Nick