One of the great things about working for the government is that we observe all of the national holidays. For me, that meant that I had a three day weekend in honor of Columbus Day. And in honor of that great explorer, I went on a long planned excursion to a place few people have been. I'm talking about the dinosaur footprints of Shirkent Nature Reserve, in Western Tajikistan. I first heard about this three-day trek on a different hike early in the Summer and have been planning this ever since.
Click the picture below for all of the pics, or continue reading and I'll post the link again at the bottom:
It took some doing, but I discovered that the father of one of my employees is able to make all of the arrangements, so once I got in touch with him, I put together a group of other intrepid travellers and got things in order. We departed Dushanbe around 6:30am on Saturday and headed west for about 45 minutes to meet our guide, Toshmorod.
We were at the meeting place and looking around to try to spot him, when this guy just opened the front door and said 'Good Morning' in Russian. He never introduced himself, but after speaking with me for a couple of minutes, he asked if anyone spoke Russian. I was a bit taken aback because, while I'm not fluent, I'm no slouch at Russian either. Nonetheless, we quickly had things sorted out and found ourselves accompanying Toshmorod to the local bazaar to purchase what seemed to be an inordinant amount of food for our trip.
Thus provisioned, we turned north and headed toward our destination. We chatted a bit on our way, and somehow our conversation turned to Yetis. Toshmorod mentioned that in the 70's thousands of people came from Europe to look for them. Apparently many people in Tajikistan still firmly believe in the Yeti and have even claimed to have encountered one. They describe the Yeti as a hair-covered, buxom female with a high libido that frequently seeks 'encounters' of it's own with village men. There is apparently at least one shepherd that has an ongoing relationship with her. Our guide himself called the whole thing a fairy tale, but it was a good one.
The road quickly petered out to a dirt trail, and then to not much more than piles of rocks. Shortly, the passengers all had to get out of the car so it could pass the more trecherous parts without scraping on the rocks. At least it gave me a chance to snap a picture of the beautiful blue river running alongside.
After awhile we were able to get back in the car and we passed a guy fishing. Toshmorod told us that there was a special golden fish, a Tsar's fish, that lives in that river and was highly sought after.
Lo' and behold, we came upon a group of men at a camp and after a few minute's conversation, our guide returned with one of the fabled fish on a stick. He promised to cook it for us for dinner and then got in the car with it - somewhat to my chagrin as the dead fish kept slapping against my leg as we drove on.
Eventually, we reached the point where we had to part ways with our vehicle, because no road goes where we went. We sat under this incredible mulberry tree that was growing right out of a rock, (pictures of that later), while we waited for our donkeys to arrive. Then it started to rain. We had been cautiously optimistic about the weather so far. The forecast was for rain the entire weekend, but when we awoke to sunshine we were hopeful that the forecast was wrong as usual.
Fortunately, it didn't rain for long and shortly the donkeys arrived along with a cook and a guard, who brought a gun to protect us from bears, wild boars, and half-wild sheep dogs. Toshmorod explained that we would be hiking up to our base camp where we'd stay the night and then depart early the next morning for 'the tough part'. The trip up to the base camp wasn't easy, but after the second day's hike, I saw what he meant. I was trying to conserve my camera battery on the way to the dinosaur footprints, but I couldn't help myself when we came to these rolling hills and herds of horses. It was amazing.
It only rained on us once or twice more before we made it to the base camp and then it stayed clear for the most part. While we set up our tents, our cook prepared us a delicious dinner -
- followed by a campfire to keep us warm before bed. One of my friends is a very experienced camper and it was really thanks to him that we had the gear we needed. Unfortunately, there was a miscommunication and he brought one too few sleeping bags. Not wanting anyone to feel bad, I did the best I could without it. It was quite cold, so I put on every piece of clothing I had and stuffed toe-warmers everywhere I could think of. I wasn't doing too badly until the toe warmers stopped working and I came down with a case of Tajik tummy. I don't think it was from the fish. We did eat it and it was actually rather tasty.
Given that it was pitch black and freezing out, I decided to bear the discomfort rather than risking the perils of the great outdoors in such a state. It was a very long night and when the donkey's started braying their morning welcome I was quite grateful. I was able to see to my needs before breakfast and took copious amounts of pepto bismol, immodium, and charcoal, hoping for the best on the long trek ahead. At breakfast I stuck with bread to be safe and we set out at 7:30am.
On the bright side (literally) it was a beautiful morning. Toshmorod explained that we would be hiking up 1,000 meters (over 3,000 feet) to a pass, then down 1,000 meters to the footprints, then back up and down again to get back to the camp.
The scenery was incredible, which is usually for Tajikistan, but what added to it were the fall colors and an unusual abundance of trees in many places.
The hiking was very strenuous and eventually we reached a point where we had to leave even the goat trail behind and struck off across the hills. Given the setting, the exertion was far from the top of our minds and we quickly reached the peak of our upward journey and looked down into the valley below.
After a short rest, we began our descent. If anything, it was worse than the hike up. The hillside was incredibly steep and there usually wasn't anything to hold on to. We had to be careful about our footing and the going was tough on the knees. But again, we were rewarded for our efforts by the scenery.
Our guide warned us to be on the lookout for boars as they like to sleep under the tree roots. He even pointed out one of their dens -
- but I didn't see any. Nonetheless, I was glad to have someone with a gun incase we stumbled upon one.
We finally made it down to the river bed and after a short trek, we reached our goal, the dino footprints!
Our guide lamented that they were less clear than they had been when he was last there, but I thought they were still really cool. We had a lot of fun posing with them. They were discovered in the 1930's and are thought to be over 100 million years old. That's incredible. But it was a little sad to think of them slowly washing away. Toshmorod seemed really surprised at how much they had changed in 2 years. I wonder what they were like before.
This actually brings up another point. Toshmorod told us that he is the only person who knows exactly how to find the prints and he was bringing along our guard in part to teach him how to find them for future groups. It was neat to think we were the first people to take the trek in 2 years, and more-so to think how few people have ever/will ever get to see them.
After we took our fill of pictures, we settled in for lunch and it immediately began to rain. Thankfully, we were able to find a sheltered spot under a nearby tree that kept us dry. I still stuck to bread just to be safe, but the others enjoyed sausage, cheese, and fruit. Then all of us had to face the return trip...
To be honest, it wasn't as bad as we thought, although the rain seemed determined to make up for lost time. At one point, our guide tried to shoot some birds. It caught all of us by surprise, but me especially since I was only a few feet behind him when hi suddenly fired his gun.
One of the benefits of the rain was that it left some new snow on the tops of the nearby mountains, and provided a whole new look to our return trip.
The downside was that the vegetation covering the hills quickly caused our jeans and shoes to soak through. So I don't think it was unfair that we were all a little non-plussed when we reached the high point of the hike and then kept going up instead of going back down. Breaks had been few and far between, although I got a great shot of our guard relaxing.
I guess Toshmorod was trying to find a quicker descent since we had to beat the sunset, as we climbed down through a rocky ravine instead of trapsing around the hills. As we approached the end of our hike, I was really starting to fade - bread and water is not enough to support me on a 10 hour hike - but I was re-energized by the light of the setting sun on the mountains (and a power bar from our resident expert camper).
By the time we got to camp, I was so hungry I didn't care about the consequences and scarfed down a plate of the delicious plov that our cook prepared for us. We spent the rest of the evening drying our clothes by the fire before turning in, exhausted, for a much better night's sleep.
It rained in the night, but on Monday, we awoke to a spectacular morning sky.
The cook already had breakfast going and before long we had packed up our gear and were on the way. Once again, we enjoyed more outstanding views, and by then I was no longer concerned about my camera batteries.
It didn't rain anymore, but the constantly changing clouds provided endless visual entertainment. At one point we were challenged by a pack of very angry sheep dogs and our guard was quite a bit behind us with the donkeys.
Luckily, our outdoorsy friend had pepper-spray. The tiniest whiff of it sent the dogs running and we continued on.
When we reached the end of the trail, we were all pretty ready to go, but Toshmorod insisted that the cook wanted to make us lunch and that it would only take a half hour. An hour and a half later we were eating a very good cabbage soup, but were no closer to getting home. At least our lunch spot had a nice view of the mulberry tree and surrounding mountains.
Eventually, we finally got the car loaded up, and headed home. All in all we estimate we hiked over 20 miles, not to mention a total altitude gain of over 2,000m (more than 6,500 feet) and back. A great trip was had by all. Thank you Christopher Columbus!
Epilogue:
Coming through the door, I was greeted by the smell of a delicious lasagna that Stephanie prepared for me. It really hit the spot as I relaxed and rested my sore knees. As much as I enjoyed my adventure, it was good to be home. I should note that Stephanie wasn't idle while I was off adventuring. On Saturday, she went to a Russian ballet at the opera house, which she said was really impressive.
On Sunday, she went to a charity fashion show at the Hyatt. The show was intended to raise money for victims of domestic abuse. But apparently, a local official almost called the whole thing off because the official position is that there is no domestic abuse in Tajikistan. The show's organizers had to scramble and black out the information about domestic abuse that was in the flyers. Fortunatley, most attendees already knew the deal so the meaning of the event wasn't lost. More importantly, the money raised for the charity was still provided to help the non-existant victims of abuse in Tajikistan.
More pictures from the hike:
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| Dinosaur Footprints 2010 JPGS |
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