We went back to Dushanbe and had most of Rosinante’s oils and liquids changed. With our friends at the car service we arranged that Racki can order macrame cord via wildberries. We had tried to get some in Uzbekistan or Tajikistan but it was not possible. So we had to wait for about ten days for the stuff coming from China to Russia and then Tajikistan.

We went north of Dushanbe and through the tunnel of death. Coincidentally the song “Don’t worry, be happy” started playing on our radio when we entered it. It was funny. And they had started to fix and clean parts of the tunnel which made it less deadly. But still we could sometimes only see five meters ahead of Rosinante.

We made it to the Iskandarkul, a big mountain lake.

On iOverlander, we found the coordinates of a few climbing routes in one of the comments to a camp spot. There were only a handful of routes but still climbing was fun as always. But the mosquitos were crazy. We never had that many before and put on all the protection gear we had.

Most of the routes were pretty tough and the view from the one multi-pitch was nice. But I felt like there was building up some tension between Rackis and me.

We escaped the mosquitos and searched for a place at the lake with less trees in hopes that there we would face less of these angry monsters. On the way we found this ruin which never got finished. But we loved the tyre strategy they had used.

The camp spot we found was very nice. Close to the water, less mosquitos.

One day, we did a hike on the closest small mountain ridge and took this bridge. It was a very special and very creative one. Strong and solid. Made out of everything you can find in a forest.

During that time at the lake, my next song got released: encounter. Here is a list of music services on which you can listen to it.

One day other travelers from Germany joined us and we had a good time together.

After some days, we left the lake and had a look at the nice canyon and waterfall next to it.

The waterfall was the strongest one we had seen so far. When we continued our drive to our next destination, Racki and I talked about the tension I felt between us. I feel offended and like Rackis is pissed about something. I’d say we did pretty good/ healthy in how we talked about it. And after that I felt a lot of relief. It’s interesting how these dynamics between humans develop. I love Racki and the life we are living together. It feels just right to me. And I feel like the impermanence in relationships is just part of human life.

Our next stop was at another small climbing area. It was super hot, but directly at the climbing routes there were three big trees and so this place was just perfect for climbing and chilling in the summer heat.

The drought was omnipresent. The main river was completely dried out and locals had installed a whole lot of water pipes from the upper parts of the mountains into their village. Sometimes you could see more than twenty pipes at once.

After climbing, we went back to Dushanbe to pick up Racki’s macrame cords and visit our friends.

The best toilet decoration above the pissoir in a bar we visited.

Our friends showed us their home, car and gave us cute presents. It was interesting to talk with them about their future plans and their lives in Tajikistan.

After a couple of days with about 42 degrees in the city, we went off north again to a place we knew from months before. And of course we found another new donkey friend who came by when we had breakfast and tried speaking to the table to grab some food.

The next day, a nice couple from the Netherlands joined us and we had a day of very interesting talks about a lot of topics. Of course there were some of the ordinary travelers talks but a lot more interesting ones about life as well. I liked it a lot. And Mereltje even played a funny jazzy song for us on her ukulele which was super nice.

We left our camp spot near the last lake in Tajikistan and searched for a spot with good internet in a small town near the border to Uzbekistan. This mission turned out to be pretty difficult. After almost two hours of searching, we gave up and decided to cross the border to Uzbekistan and drove to Samarkand.

Samarkand was beautiful. It was Rackis and my anniversary and we had a nice dinner. After weeks in remote places, it’s nice to have some city life. We visited the most famous places in the city.

We are not so much interested in city sight seeing, but the light show on the most famous historical buildings was nice and beautiful.

This place was interesting as well. A center of self made, local workshops where you can even do workshops. In Samarkand we met some other travelers. It had been a while. But for me most of the talks with them were not that interesting: where are you from… , where are you going… , oh, you are traveling for so long already…,  the locals don’t know how to handle trash…, do you have Instagram…

After some days in the city, we went up some low mountains to have it colder and to do a pretty long hike. Our camp spot was beautiful.

The weather was not so clear, but still the hike and the views were awesome! And we did some climbing to reach the top most part of our trek.

This is one of the summer camps the local shepherds and their families are using. Sometimes the men stay up in the mountains alone and sometimes their families are joining them. Here’s our tour on komoot.

An original Snikkers cake in one of the many mini markets. It’s funny what stuff they have.

We went on and found a pretty nice, remote spot near a pretty touristic area. There we did another hike. These pavilions on the photo were very new and had a great view but not accessible for cars because the track leading there was closed. Here’s our tour on komoot.

We continued and cleaned Rosinante in a small car wash. A nice guy came by and gifted us some cola. He loved Germany and was so happy to meet us. For us coming from Germany has never been a problem so far. Most locals even love Germany because they often see an opportunity to earn more money in it. Sometimes we tell them that the work mentality and demands could be quite different, sometimes we just nod and tell them that life in Germany is more expensive.

Some maintenance work in our next spot. It took us some years to recognize that we could sharpen our axe with the grinding pads on our electric driller instead of using our sharpening stone.

Racki continued making wonderful bracelets. This one was especially amazing.

She made it for a friend and it had so many beautiful details.

Our next spot was in a jungle near an offroad track leading to a waterfall. On our way there, we recovered an offroad taxi which had slipped in  the muddy ditch in a small village.

This is one of the offroad taxis. Most of them are old Russian jeeps. If these are the only cars you encounter and there are no ordinary limousines on a road or track, you know that the track will get serious.

The view from the jungle. Pretty rare in the stan countries.

From our jungle place we did a short hike to the beautiful waterfall.

Next stop in a small town called Shahrisabz and some sightseeing.

Old guy out of stone.

From there we went to the next water reservoir/ lake and found a nice spot.

It was pretty hot and everybody was looking for some shade or a refreshing swim.

As nearly always, a donkey rider came along and we had a conversation about this and that with Google Translate, arms, and hands.

From the reservoir, we went to a beautiful canyon.

We found a beautiful camp spot on a hill with a nice view.

And beautiful visitors.

One day, we took a longer hike. See it on komoot.

In the canyon, we found a lot of beautiful stones for Racki’s next macrame creations.

At our next spot, Racki made me this little alien friend called Helmut. We love him and since then, he’s been hanging around in our cabin.

The place we found, was located on a hill with a nice view to the mountains on one side and to the next city in the other. The approach was pretty offroady. When we were driving on the road, we saw a pretty big flame in the distance and joked about that maybe the locals did something a bit stupid and that this might be the reason for the flame. But quickly we thought that the flame was just an ordinary flame of some gas mining or refinery. But when we saw how high this flame was from our camp spot, we googled. Turned out that a year ago, there was an accident while drilling new boreholes in one of the gas fields. The closest villagers had needed to be evacuated and the flame had been ignited to prevent gases from injuring the locals living in that area. This flame was huge. Especially at night, it looked crazy! We don’t know how high it was, but it must have been around 50 meters.

Our next spot, you can see Rosinante at the bottom of the photo, was pretty close to a settlement. We had a lot of visitors and short talks about Rosinante etc.

We did a nice hike to a waterfall we had found on the map. But there was no waterfall (anymore). But still the hike was nice. We met a lot of goats, sheep and their shepherds.

Instead of a waterfall there were only small springs. Here is our tour on komoot.

We went on and found another beautiful camp spot. The view was amazing.