As you will know from the last blog…. We spent about 4 hours in Nukus looking for the internet! Well here in Turtkul are the two guys that not only let us use their internet café for free ,but they also made sure we had a day we will remember for ever. After taking us out for a meal,of freshly fried catfish and salad,all washed down with vodka ![it’s the right drink for the climate they say….good for you in the desert !],they drove us out to a couple of the amazing old clay fortresses that most tourists never even know about,and on the way back we all swum in one of the big irrigation canals….gorgeously refreshing.[more so than vodka I thought ]. What great guys
What a find in the middle of the desert!!! A truck must have lost some of its load…. Strawberries!!! We had a pick through them and had them for breakfast stewed with buck wheat. Lovely.! We have become real desert scroungers…particularly of partly used water bottles.Its quite reassuring to know that you can collect enough extra water from all the plastic bottles that people chuck out of their cars with completely finishing them [sometimes even ….yes ,honestly…half full!] that you can wash in the evening or cook with it….you could definitely prevent ever running out of water.
Just before we set off into the desert again, a truck driver warned us that it would be difficult to cross… no water… 400km!! we assured him that we would be ok and loaded up with another 10 liters of water (20 in all) then what do we see but the biggest expanse of water we have seen since the Caspian sea.. This is the Tuyamuyun reservoir,part of the Amu-Darya river that used to reach the Aral Sea.The irrigation system along this whole river is obviously very ancient and complex,but it supports a dramatically lush intensive agriculture that enables people to live along its banks.
We stopped for a break at a monument on the side of the road ( there was a bit of shade there) when 2 bedford rascal minibuses came by… loaded with local women and their drivers. They were so nice wanting us to be in their pictures and asking all about our trip, family and our life. They left giving us water, bread and cucumbers, lovely lovely people.
There they go!!!!
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