We entered Tajikistan for the second time after we did the Pamir Highway in summer 2024 and found a camp spot at a lake in the first bigger town after the border to Uzbekistan. Soon three kids joint us. Because of the language barrier, we exchanged only some basic communication. We played on my cajon and soon some more children joint us. So we had a whole gang around us. But it was fun. After the children a younger couple came around and after them came the police. The police officers were interested in Rosinante and our nomad life and the leader of the group could speak some German and gave us his phone number to call him if we need help or something else. So for us meeting the police was fun. For the younger couple who came along before it was not so much fun because they had to pay a fine for “romantic behavior in public”. Different cultures, different rules…
We went into the mountains and took a pretty high mountain pass to get into north/ central Tajikistan. Finding a camp spot was not so easy that time. It took us about two hours of searching. But in the process we got in contact with a lot of villagers and finally we found a spot with a nice view.
On our hike we found interesting alien plant.
And this crazy happy puppy who pissed herself so happy she was to see us. It was a really crazy and absolutely cute on. After following us for a while her parents persuaded her to join them again. It was pretty funny. Here you can see our hike on Komoot.
Our next destination was Dushanbe. It was a nice and slow paced city. We liked it. I think this photo looks like it could be from the 70s or 80s. Because of the old bus.
We did some sight seeing, went to a restaurant for dinner and enjoyed some city life stuff.
After trying two iOverlander camp spots, we found our own one. This one was pretty wired and located in a small area that got used for parking and dumping building materials and trash. But it was pretty green and mostly silent.
The traffic lights in Tajikistan make the impossible possible: green and red at the same time.
They seemed to like it.
Racki’s macrame skills reached a professional level and she got super fast and enjoyed it a lot.
I got my own custom made bracelet with alien eyes! And we started to give the locals bracelets as presents when we spent more time with them or they had gifted us something. They all loved the bracelets.
After climbing for a couple of days (you can read about it in this post), we found another nice spot at a river and went for a waterfall hike. We only took our “hiking flip flops” and soon our tour escalated into some climbing. Like always. I would always recommend to take proper shoes and hiking poles on every hike in the stan countries because you really never know what will happen.
The waterfall was amazing! We guessed it was about 60 meters high. Here is our tour on Komoot.
We continued our way on the ordinary Tajik roads.
And found a nice spot at a big reservoir and had some chilled days.
Soon we got two new dog friends. Racki played a lot with them and we cooked a big portion of rice with dog food for them because they looked quite hungry. They were barking all night but fortunately not right next to Rosinante but a couple of hundred meters away.
We continued our way and found a nice spot in the greens close to a small town. Soon everyone in the town seem to know that someone interesting had arrived and so we met a whole lot of locals. Especially the kids were very interested and sometimes just sit in front of us and examined what we were doing for hours. We played with the cajon, fixed a bike, and mostly had fun with them. Some of the locals spoke a bit of German and some a bit of English. Especially one young man impressed us: Abudakha. He had been learning English a lot and loved to talk and practice with us. We talked a lot about the differences of Tajik and German culture and life and learned a lot.
On May the 4th we did the Wings For Life Run. Last year, we did it in Armenia and this time we run through the hills and farming area of Tajikistan with our friend Abudakha.
Another evening Abudakha showed us the local museum and recreation site and explained a lot of the historical stuff there. After coming back home to Rosinante, I realized that my ear buds were missing. I searched everything more than once but could not find there. I got pissed and suspected the kids with whom we had spend some time before. The next day some of the kids came visiting us again but trying to ask them about the ear buds did not work. Later Abudakha came around and I asked him to ask the kids if they know who took the ear buds. They knew something and quickly went off. Half an hour later they came back with my ear buds. They had got them from two of the kids who had been around the day before. I was super happy that I got my ear buds back. Not only because I felt stupid that I had let some kids steal my stuff, but because getting these special ear buds in the stan countries would have been pretty much impossible.
We left Abudakha and the village and went to a place they had recommended us. It was a beautiful place!
The translation of its name was something like “40 girls” and witch that the absolutely beautiful stone formations are meant.
We took a nice hike around the main rocks and they were astonishing from all sites.
I’d say it was one of the most beautiful hikes. See it on Komoot.
And our camp spot was very nice as well. And as always the locals tried to go as far as they could with there cars, regardless the scratching, rubber and clutch smell. The situation at the border between India and Pakistan escalated and so we were stuck in the stans. Nobody was allowed to cross the border between Pakistan and India and there were fights going on in the border area. So we decided not to go to Afghanistan and then to Pakistan and India. After evaluating some options, we decided to stay in the stans for a couple of weeks and check how the border situation would develop.
So we went to visit the small town of Kulob. Again I liked the old stuff the most. Like this small fairy wheel.
And of course the president’s photos were everywhere. Most likely he is the politician I’d recognize the easiest.
On the way to Uzbekistan, we parked near some fields and a small canal. Everything was like always. Some locals passed by, we greeted each other, had a short talk etc. But later in the night, this changed. Around two in the morning someone was shaking Rosinante and started laughing. We woke up but thought that some kids were just pranking us. But a couple of minutes later, we got woken up by a loud smash and noise. We went outside with our head lights and checked the situation. We did not find anybody but we found our windshield smashed. It was not just a crack like from a small stone while driving. It was broken by a real heavy impact. And what is more, Rosinante’s hood was damaged as well. We were shocked and started searching for someone who did it further away from Rosinante, but we could not find anybody. We did not even find a stone or something that could have done that damage… So we decided to leave that place immediately because I could not have continued sleeping there and we did not want that who or whatever had damaged Rosinante, would damage her even more. And we were not feeling good about this situation. In over three years of traveling never something like that had happened. Not even something that came close. We were meeting barely unfriendly people not to say any hostile ones…
So we packed and went off to another place in the direction of Dushanbe because we could not think of another place nearby where we could get a new windshield. The next morning, we researched for a mechanic in Dushanbe on Google Maps and iOverlander. We found a promising one and started messaging on Whats App. He could speak German and English and so the communication was easy. We made an appointment for the next day. At our nice green camp spot in Dushanbe, we met nice and lovely family who gifted us food. Racki gave them some of her beautiful bracelets in return. Unfortunately I got a heavy diarrhea in the evening. Most of the night I spent shitting and in the morning, I even had to puke. I didn’t know what caused it, but I was pretty much fucked. But we needed to go to the mechanic because we had only two visa days left in Tajikistan and we did not know if the repair would run smoothly. And what is more the area where we wanted to go in Uzbekistan looked pretty rural on the maps and so there was very little hope to find a new windshield over there. At the mechanic I was barely surviving. But Racki talked to the mechanics and managed everything. They were super nice and we felt very good about what they would do. We briefly searched for the reason of a squeaking noise we had in the front of Rosinante, but I felt to tired and weak to investigate it thoroughly. And so we left into the direction of Uzbekistan once the windshield got repaired.