Zerafshan Weekend

I'm very much recovered now - we ordered Latin American food tonight and I feel just fine after eating it. And now I've had time to put together the story of our trip to Zerafshan Valley. If you're here for just the pictures, here's the link:

Iskanderkul 2010 JPGS

Our weekend getaway in Zerafshan valley turned out to be quite memorable indeed. We set out from Dushanbe around 3pm and made it about 20 minutes out of the city when our vehicle started making strange noises. We asked if everything was OK and our driver assured us that it was fine. However, not long after that, the car started making those noises again and the driver stopped to put more water in the radiator – which seemed a bit ominous so early in our trip.

About an hour and a half after we left Dushanbe, we had started to climb the switchbacking roads up to the tunnel, when the car finally gave out completely. The driver had to let the car roll as far as he could back to the floor of the valley. I really thought that was going to be the end of it, and that we’d have to go back to Dushanbe. I was pleasantly surprised, however, when our guide said that he had arranged for a back-up vehicle, which would pick us up in about an hour. Back-up plans are certainly not a given in Tajikistan, so we waited without complaint and took in the nice surrounding scenery – including some sheep herds on the snow pack nearby.

The back-up car arrived as promised, and although it was a bit smaller, we all fit comfortably. We were also able to make much better time than in the previous vehicle. In short order we found ourselves entering the infamous Tajik Tunnel of Death. The original plan was to go over the Anzob pass, which is know to have great views, but even this late in the year, the pass was closed for snow. I’ll admit I was excited to see the tunnel first hand anyway, as I’ve heard so much about it. People have told me that the tunnel has improved a lot over the last year, so I was worried it would be a letdown after all the hype.

Well, I wasn’t disappointed, and I can’t imagine what it must have been like before if what we saw was improved. There was still standing water in most of the tunnel, the air was thick with exhaust fumes, there are giant holes in the road with re-bar sticking out of them, there was abandoned equipment everywhere, and there were only a few bare light bulbs to break up 6 kilometers of blackness. In short, it was every bit as thrilling as I’d hoped.

Once we made it through the tunnel, it was like we had gone back in time by 2 months. We had entered the Zerafshan Valley and it looked like spring instead of summer. There was green grass, fields of flowers, and the temperature was noticeably cooler. There was plenty of great scenery until darkness fell.

On the way to our home stay in Saratog village, we encountered a little trouble when a large truck ignored the pull-off area and came right towards us. With only a single lane and sheer cliffs above and below us, we were in a bit of a jam as the truck driver didn’t want to back up in the dark, nor did our driver. In the end, our driver had us all get out of the car so that he could attempt to drive around the truck – real daredevil move. Needless to say, he made it, but when we walked over to the car we could see about 10 feet of space where it was very clear that the tires were not all touching the road as the driver skirted the edge of the precipice.

In the end, we made it safe and sound to the village of Saratog and were quickly shown to our rooms in the home where we stayed. By then, it was around 9pm and we were very hungry. When we sat down to eat, it looked like mostly a collection of sweets, nuts, fruit, and some fresh local yogurt.

Thinking that this was all there would be, we dug right in – we should have known better, as meals are always made up of several courses here - then they brought out salads. And then there were large bowls of soup. The meal finally culminated with chicken and potatoes, with all of us thoroughly overstuffed. This isn’t the first time this has happened to us, but I guess we still haven’t learned.

After dinner, we were shown to the bath house behind the main house. The toilet was the usual hole in the floor (we dubbed them squatty-potties), and the ‘shower’ was also interesting. There was an anteroom for changing, and then a small room with a tub of water heated by a fire, a bucket of cold water, and an empty bucket for mixing. The room was kept nice and warm by the fire, so it wasn’t bad at all. I guess this is how people did it for thousands of years before indoor plumbing.

All cleaned up, we took a few minutes to enjoy the scenery in the moonlight and got some good pictures with the long exposure on my camera - you can see the big dipper in this one...

The next morning, after a delicious breakfast, we set out for a very long hike - about 20 kilometers in all - into one of the gorges that opens into the valley, following an amazingly blue river that originates from glacial runoff.

On the way, we encountered some roaming shepherds and their flocks of sheep and goats.

At one spot, the men posed for pictures and offered us fermented goats milk from a sheep stomach. It wasn't very far along in the fermentation process, but it was tasty - similar to a mild pecorino cheese.

(I know, if you read my post, this could clearly have been the source of my stomach troubles - but it wasn't the only one).

From there we hiked on until we reached our picnic spot. At one rest stop, an interesting bug decided it liked my jeans and stayed for some nice closeups.

We had our lunch in a nice shady spot next to the river and rested a bit before heading back down the gorge.

At the end of the gorge, we climbed up to a plateau and hiked to the summer pastures, where people from various nearby villages gather to raise their cattle.

This was by far one of the most interesting parts of our trip. We learned how each summer these people relocate to these little villages for three months. The women stay in the village and care for the calves while them men take the cows and other animals to graze. The women gave us fresh yogurt and bread and posed for pictures.

It was a great experience and interesting to see how the women responded to the camera. At first they were shy, but when I showed them the pictures I took on the screen, they were very excited and kept wanting to pose for more.

It was also neat to see how they primped themselves a bit before the pictures - removing coats, smoothing their dresses, etc... It's not something we would think of in such a rustic setting. The unibrows on the girls are intentional. Here it's a symbol of purity, so if they don't grow one naturally, they draw it in until they are married.

On the way back to Saratog, one of the women also gave us each on of the dry yogurt balls (about the size of a tennis ball) to take with us. I think that most of my family who tried them when I visited in March will cringe at the thought, but Stephanie and I really like them.

On our way back to the home stay, Stephanie wanted to try out a 'neat' looking hanging bridge over the river, so down we went. We passed a man who was building a house and apparently also built the bridge. So he followed us down and insisted on taking pictures with the women first, and then the men.

Our guide told us the bridge was probably safe for 2 people, so when I was out there with three other guys, it was a little nerve wracking.

Once we got back to the home stay, we relaxed a bit, cleaned up in the bath house and sat down to a nice dinner of the local plov. Our host also brought us these strange, flat yogurt things that tasted sort of like a waxy butter on the outside and a sour cream cheese on the inside. These were apparently from the village we visited - and I suppose could have also been the source of my misery - but it was still neat to try them. Afterwards, I went out for a little walk in the moonlight before returning for bed. We were exhausted!

On Sunday, we got an early start and hiked up a beautiful little valley to the so-called 'bubbling stream'.

Unfortunately, it wasn't very clear or bubbling, which our guide told us was unusual. At least the hike was nice.

From there, we made our way down to the lake, stopping at Five Springs, where clear water bubbles up from under the mountain.

Our guide told us it was safe to drink (again, I suppose in hindsight this was questionable, but no one else got sick that I know of).

We drove around the edge of Iskanderkul lake, taking in the beautiful views of the blue water and reflections of the mountains.

This one in particular is called 'The Hat of Alexander'.

The lake is called Iskandarkul, which translates to Lake Alexander, (Iskandar = Alexander, Kul = lake), named for Alexander the Great when he passed through the region.

The legend is that Alexander created the lake to destroy a resistant village by building a dam and flooding the town (although it appears the lake is much older than that).

Our next excursion was to hike along the river that drains out of the lake to the point where it plummets over 100 feet in the first 'real' waterfall we've seen here.

There was a rickety little overlook-

- and we spent some time climbing the surrounding rocks taking in the scenery.

From the waterfall, we hiked back toward the lake and then over a hill to see Snake Lake. The lake is so named because water snakes apparently inhabit it. We didn't see any and I don't see how they could since the water was so cold. Snakes or no snakes, it was a mesmerizing view.

We finished our day by driving around to a nice spot on the other side of the lake to eat lunch. It was very peaceful spot and we had a nice lunch. The only annoyance was an overabundance of flies and some fluffy seed pods that were flying through the air. At some points it was coming down so heavily, it looked like snow.

After lunch, we packed it in and headed back for Dushanbe. In addition to the great views-

- we had some excitement when our driver decided to pass a truck around a blind curve and almost ran head on into an oncoming car. After much honking of horns and screeching of tires, we survived. I guess he felt emboldened after his daredevil driving on the way up.

Other than that, our trip was uneventful until we reached the tunnel of death again. In the middle, we encountered a traffic jam where half the road was torn up with rebar sticking in the air and cars were trying to get through both ways.

In this picture, you can see the rebar to the right of the view. It becomes very panicky when you realize that you might be stuck in there with all the fumes, but our aggressive driver got us through and in less than two hours were we back safe and sound in Dushanbe. All in all, a pretty amazing trip.

If you didn't check out the pictures before, here are the rest:

Iskanderkul 2010 JPGS

Tajik Tummy Time

Stephanie and I had an amazing trip over the weekend. Unfortunately, I'm not ready to tell it. We got home Sunday evening, safe and sound, but about 2 hours after we went too bed I woke up with some... digestive troubles. It turned out to be the worst case I've had of Tajik Tummy so far and was up all night. When you read about some of the things we ate on our trip, you might find it no surprise that I got sick, but thankfully, Stephanie didn't - even though she ate the same things.

Suffice it to say that I was in no condition to put together photo albums or type blog posts. I couldn't even take much water until late in the afternoon on Monday (which was luckily a local holiday). Fortunately, I have a wonderful wife who took excellent care of me. And after a decent night's sleep I was feeling much better and was able to go to work today. I'm hoping to move beyond bread and chicken broth tomorrow.

So the story of our trip to the Zerafshan valley will have to wait a couple more days. We are switching to a new internet service on Thursday. We have our fingers crossed that it will go smoothly. Until then...

Hot As Blazes

I wonder how many times I'll have to write about how hot it's getting. I know I mentioned it a couple of months ago when temperatures climbed into the 80s. Now it's really blazing, with highs in the upper 90's. From what I hear, we still have a couple months of well over 100 degrees to look forward to, so I'm sure I'll mention it again. I had a particularly bad experience yesterday, when the vehicle I got into turned out not to have any windows in the back or air-conditioning. It was like riding home in an oven. From now on I'm sticking to the numbered taxis and marshrutkas - which are smaller and have rear windows.

The one thing the hot weather seems to be good for is our garden, which is rapidly growing. We had our first zucchini and nasturtium last night for dinner. The zucchini were kind of small, but tasty and there are more growing. Hopefully within another month, the rest of the plants will have caught up since they got a later start.

Today we actually had rain for the first time in a couple weeks,(the summer drought is setting in), and the accompanying cloud cover gave a nice respite from the heat. I was also serenaded by a remix of 'Last Christmas' by Wham!, which was about as incongruous as it could possibly be at this time of year in this part of the world. In fact, our lack of car is exposing us to all sorts of interesting cars. The other morning, stephanie came with me to the gym in the morning and we road in a bronze car with the interior covered in a material that looked like an orange bath towel.

Work is busier than usual as we approach the 4th of July extravaganza, and finished negotiations on the embassy gardening contract, but we have two long weekends in a row to ease the pain. This weekend we are heading off for an adventure in the mountains - which will hopefully be much cooler.

Having A Blast!

This week finished with quite a bang. Despite being extremely busy, I had to leave work early on Friday to oversee the destruction of two of our old vehicles. There's certain rules that have to be followed. The destruction site was about 45 minutes out of town, so when I left around 12:30, I thought I'd be back before the end of the day.

As it turned out, the destruction didn't go off until almost 6pm. Luckily, I had hedged my bets and bought several sambusas on the way, which kept my stomach satisfied. The weather cooperated as well and there were some clouds to hide the sun and keep it cooler than it's been. So I spent pretty much the entire afternoon talking to my driver and checking in periodically with my staff at the embassy. At least I got some good Russian practice in.

I was also able to get some nice pictures.

As the summer gets hotter, you can see that the hills have already lost their green from earlier this year.

In the end, the wait was totally worth it. I went with the team that set things up and we climbed on top of a viewing tower. The upper platform was over three stories high and the whole thing shook whenever we moved, so it seemed a bit precarious. Nonetheless, it was by far the best vantage point. I suppose at this point I should mention that our method of destruction was detonation. The vehicles were rigged with lots of explosives, so much so, that one of the guys jokingly wondered if the tower we were on would withstand the shock wave.

We were really far away, so I had trouble crediting that the explosion would be that big. Well, I was certainly surprised. We all had our cameras ready when the first fireball when up. Given the distance, it was huge. Several seconds later, the shock wave hit us with a thunderous boom that literally shook the whole tower. It was amazing. One of the guys mentioned that the first one was the smaller of the two.

The second explosion was behind a hill, but we could still see it very clearly. Again, a few seconds later, the shock wave hit us like a fist. It was up there on my list of coolest things I've ever seen. I figured that pictures wouldn't really do it justice, so I filmed both and made a short video montage. If you look carefully at the slow-mo repeat of the second explosion at the end, you can see the shock wave moving across the field to the left.

Of course, I still got some pictures of the aftermath, and we went out to the sites to ensure that the destruction was complete.

Boy was it ever! The first explosion only left some hunks of burning, twisted metal.

The second basically just left a hole in the ground.

The scrap metal can now be picked up and reused on the local market. As the video said, 'Mission Accomplished.'

On Saturday, we went to a farewell BBQ for one of my coworkers and had a nice time once the sun went down. It's been extremely hot during the day and from what I understand, it's just getting started.

To escape the heat a little, we planned a birthday party for one of our friends at a riverside resort about an hour outside of town today.

It really was a nice place and the river kept things a little cooler. We mostly spent the day eating, wading in the river, and generally having a good time.

Someone came up with the idea of making a vodkamelon, but not having the proper tools, we resorted to trying to inject it with a syringe.

It didn't really work, but the watermelon was good. By the time we left, the moon had risen over the surrounding mountains and Stephanie and I were more than ready to spend an evening in the A/C. With highs already in the mid-90's, it's going to be a hot summer.

It's Electric...

At work I've mostly been getting ready for an auction we've been holding this week to get rid of old or un-needed items that are filling up our warehouse . It's a lot of work to organize, but it's neat to see it when it all comes together. Of course, everyone is also watching the situation in Kyrgyzstan, but so far it hasn't impacted us at all here.

Being busy at work doesn't mean we don't have time to have fun. Last weekend, our ambassador teamed up with the British Ambassador to get people together to watch the U.S.-Britain match at the World Cup. Fans from both sides got together for dinner at Victory Park and then watched the game (which didn't start until 11:30pm local time). It was a great game with lots of excitement, and we certainly had a lot of fun ragging our British counterparts over their goalie's butter-finger moment.

On Monday night, we heard the rumblings of thunder nearby and saw the dark clouds rolling in around sunset. I went up to the attic room to read and listen to the storm, and realized that this could be a great photo op. I was able to get a great view of the approaching storm and some really nice shots of the lightening...

Yesterday was a particularly nice treat as Stephanie came to the embassy gym with me to work out in the morning. Then we went to the Hyatt together for a new price-fixed lunch option they're offering. As always, the Hyatt provides a nice respite from the daily grind in Dushanbe. Not to mention that the cream of cauliflower & blue cheese soup, stuffed bell pepper, veal schnitzel, and chocolate fudge cake!

After all this excitement, it's already Thursday and another weekend is just around the corner!

The Blog Must Go On

If you're still working your way through the Italy blog, you can get to it here:

http://theroadmoretraveled-nicksblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/great-italy-adventure.html



But the adventure continues in Dushanbe and so does the blog. Getting back into work has been relatively easy, but getting back into Dushanbe has been tougher. It was amazing how, just after three weeks, it felt almost like we were coming here for the first time again when we got back from Italy. The feeling didn't last long, but it was interesting to have to adjust again.

I think I mentioned in my first post after we got back that one of my top employees was leaving for another U.S. Embassy - in Oman. He's gone now, but we had a good time sending him off. He hosted us for a big night out, which reminded me how lucky we are to be here. Anyone can visit, but we get to experience local culture in a way that most tourists never could.

We were also invited to a party at his house - with all the excessive eating that goes with it. This was just one of many events on our very busy Memorial Day Weekend. We got to go to a couple of BBQs, which was nice since it felt like home.

We've more or less given up on our hunt for a car, or even a driver. It's just too complicated and is eating up too much of our time. We slowly realized that we got by without cars in New York and Washington, and it's really no more difficult to do here. When we want to go out of town, we can hire someone to take us.

Another adventure has been trying to find a replacement for our bazaar. The one near us was closed by the government while we were gone so that they could build something else - no thought for where the people who worked there would go or how it would affect people living nearby, but that's par or the course. At first we thought we'd have to go to the Green Market every weekend, which isn't very convenient to us and is also very hectic.

Some friends of ours told us about a bazaar to the north and it turns out to be more our speed. Plus, we can catch the marshrutka right in front of our house to get there. We've really been enjoying the fruits of spring (literally) and have been stuffing ourselves with mulberries, apricots, plums, and cherries. The selection will only get better as time goes.

Last weekend, we went on the hike. We didn't have to go far, but it was a huge difference in scenery. In town, the hills are already turning the dull brown of summer, but in the mountains, it's still green and there are plenty of snow capped peaks to go around.


We started our hike near the sanatorium - it's a health spa built by the Russians to take advantage of natural hot springs that give of radon gas.


Yes, you read that right. People go there to breathe in radioactive fumes. Bypassing the radiation hazard, we enjoyed a nice long hike up to the snow line, which is still melting and giving of fresh clear streams of water.

We had to watch out for this one plant that apparently causes a burning rash - it's the one that looks like dill in this picture.

It was absolutely everywhere and despite our best efforts we both brushed up against it. Fortunately, a good scrubbing at home seems to have spared us any ill effects.

We ate lunch on some rocks next to the snow pack-

- and I was startled to see something huge lumbering towards us. It was so big it took me awhile to realize it was a bird - an eagle actually - and by the time I got my camera out it was already in flight. Pretty amazing.

On the way back, we were in a race against time to beat in incoming thunderstorms.

But that didn't mean we didn't have time to take some pictures of the locals or to appreciate some fossils in the rocks.

It's hard to believe that at one point these mountains were at the bottom of the sea.


Click the image for more pictures from the hike.

Hike 060510 jpgs

So here we are, and we've already been back longer than we were gone. The good thing is that the vacation still seems much longer in my mind than the last three weeks. We've already found a replacement for the employee that left, and life goes on...