Bukhara, Uzbekistan: Day 22
A wild ride through 135-degree Turkmen desert quenched with Fanta and calf’s tongue as we said goodbye to Jafar. Uzbekis welcome us with wilder whistling and night falls to the sound of cows lowing and crickets chirping. The melon festival continues.
From the road:
The rest of Turkmenistan was wonderful. Its a great country, despite the amazing heat! After an afternoon in the desert sand and a late lunch of fried calf’s tongue (what else would you want to eat after a long day in the sun!?), we were off to the Uzbek border. We arrived an hour before closing time and all of us we feeling antsy about the possibility of sleeping in the dmz between the two countries. But much to our happy surprise, this border was the easiest yet! All 9 of us were in and out in under 45 minutes! Amazing! Then we hit the road and now we’re in Bukhara taking a quick break to use the internet (haven’t seen a computer in days!) and figure out our next move–Samarkand. Thank you to Ayan Tours and Jebar and Merdan, we had a great time in Turkmenistan! Ashgabat was quite a pleasant surprise. Turkmenistan is now at the top of the favorites list. It was great to travel with Team Saskatchewan, Hobo Logistics, and the Skiplizards, too. We’ve almost erased the awful ferry ride from our minds. The car could use a little tlc, so we hope to have some time tomorrow to tune it up. There is a newish Daewoo plant here in Uzbekistan and there are Daewoo versions of the HiJet EVERYWHERE. It won us some bonus points with the cops at the first check point, but we’re also hoping that getting some service done will be easier too. Because the ferry ride was so long and our tour of Turkmenistan ran longer as a result, we’re going to have to really push from here on out to make it to UB by the 19th! We miss you all and hope all’s well wherever you are! More soon!!!!