2013.08.04 — Sunday — Working on little sleep, we started our day in Samarkand. Ate complimentary breakfast before checking into our room. After we settled in we mustered the energy to meet with the Swedish team also staying at the hotel. They saw our rally car out front and sent us an invitation to join them in the courtyard. We chatted for some time and learned that they were also doing the Pamirs, but would leave before we were able. We explored Samarkand on foot midday. It was sooo hot. Plus it was Ramadan. And Sunday. So absolutely nothing was open or going on. We retired to the outdoor shaded area of our hotel courtyard and drank beers and ordered pizza, which was about the only food we could get our hands on.
2013.08.05 — Monday — Went on a tour of all the mosques and mosoleums — all of the main attractions. Still hot. We did a lot of walking. Everything was blue. Saw Timur’s (Tamerlane’s) tomb at the Gur-E-Amir Mausoleum. Then we hit the Registan and continued onto the Bibi-Khanym Mosque, which was huge. Capped off the day at Shah-I-Zinda, which is a large collection of small, ornate mausoleums, also known as the Avenue of Mosoleums.
The scorching Uzbek sun bears down on the Registan.
Matt at the Avenue of Mausoleums
Returned to our hotel and executed a similar game plan to the previous night. This time we asked for hot water and cooked our own ramen. Eggs and sausage gratis from Ideal Hotel. We were really running low on cash, which is near impossible to comeby in Samarkand; you have what you bring. The economics of the city are just baffling. The black market exchange rate for dollars approaches 150% the ‘official’ exchange rate. Locals were desperate to get there hands on foreign currency. We were walking around with a backpack full of stacks of cash. They need to print bigger bills.
Cost of a beer in Uzbekistan.
2013.08.06 — Tuesday — We headed to the Tajik border. One real gas station in Samarkand, so we had to wait an hour for gas. We also topped off our oil. It was a dusty drive. And we’re not talking about the roads, necessarily. There was just dust in the sky, and everywhere. Drove through a couple of dust storms. We found Genghis style, a British team, in the hills and started to follow them. They are Greg, Mark, Andrew, and Amy. Near the town of Denau we found a Swiss team, Robert and Andrea. We stopped to greet them, at which point Genghis style, who had the prettiest rally car, was mobbed by locals who wanted to buy their vehicle and ask questions. We eventually found our way through the crowd. A local at the next intersection understood that we were headed to the border and started waving us in the right direction. And not only that, he flagged us through a red light, forcing the right-of-way traffic to stop for us. We were VIPs in Denau. We found the Tajik border together, but it was closed. Team fishbowl was also at the border! Mitch and Katie are our favorite Australians, so it was great to see them again. However, they were denied exit by the Uzbeks because they had overstayed their visa by a few hours. They would not be able to travel with us through the Pamirs. The four teams set up camp inside the first of many border gates and had a merry evening of food and drink. A very generous Turkish truck driver visited with us and invited everybody to dinner in his lavish ride. Only the swiss accepted. They paid for it.