From Almaty, we went to the nice rock climbing area south of Bishkek we had visited the year before as well. Have a look on the crag.

Our friend Maria joined us and brought a new friend with her who tried rock climbing for the first time. Together we had a lot of fun hanging around, climbing …

… and partying on a techno party in a nice, old bunker location.

From Bishkek we went into the direction of Osh to cross the border to Uzbekistan to then continue to Tajikistan, Uzbekistan (again), Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. Sometimes the areas around rivers in the stan countries are irritating: for me rivers are mostly the nicest nature places but here often the rivers are used as trash dumps.

As always in Uzbekistan: the invasion of the Damas mini buses! They are everywhere. Uzbekistan has an interesting car market which is dominated by Chevrolets produced in the country: have a look at more info on Reddit.

We went into the beautiful Uzbek mountains and started a two days hike.

The hike was beautiful with some river crossings and a bit of rock crawling.

Our destination was a beautiful waterfall.

And not far from the waterfall we found a nice camp spot for our tent.

The weather was super nice and it really felt like summer again!

The way back to Rosinante was mostly pathfinding in the labyrinth of goat trails. Here are our tours on komoot: day one, day two.

We continued our way in the direction of Tajikistan.

From Kazakhstan we took the border crossing to Uzbekistan. The road after the crossing was the worst we’ve ever experienced. This photo shows the new road which was still in construction. But we illegally crossed from the old, broken road to this one because the old one was so crazy. Before we tried to go next to the broken road through the dirt and dust but that worked not as good as well. On iOverlander there are reports of travelers going ten kilometers per hour on 250km of distance. We could go much faster but still it was crazy. I got really mad about this. And it’s weird: on an off-road track I don’t mind going slow, but on this road… The potholes were so deep, big and there were so many. And there were trucks. A lot. They had to go really slow, nearly stopping. If the locals go like that, you know about the conditions of a road. We’ve never seen so many cars broken at the side of the road. At some point I started just acceleration and braking hard because I just wanted to pass this road. Didn’t make sense but… fuck it!

But of course the locals knew how to pack their stuff.

We skipped the Aral Sea because we didn’t want to make the detour and went to visit an old sand stone fortress.

It looked interesting how the sand stone “melted” over the years.

Some proper sight-seeing in Buchara.

I liked these wooden pillars.

Buchara is a crazy tourist town.

Racki got a new haircut.

We met again friends we got to know before in Georgia and had a great time together.

Together we did some maintenance on their bikes and we crafted some custom made spare parts. On the road we learn a lot about repairing and crafting.

These little vans are the most common cars in Uzbekistan. They are like ants. Thousands and everywhere.

We found an amazing camp spot.

And parked as accurate as ever.

Met a lot of super friendly people.

Racki crafted jewelry and other stuff.

We had our signature meal: selfmade Pampe (kind of spread) with Lavash (thin bread/ wraps).

We went there primarily because we wanted to try the climbing crag there but the crag was just a small rock and the routes were nothing like the climbing routes I did before. The stone was loose, the distances between the bolts were huge and the positioning of the bolts did mostly not make any sense for me. When falling these bolts would not really do there job. I did not really enjoy climbing there. It was more a practicing rock for alpinism.

But the scenery!

It was super beautiful and we went for a nice hike/ mountaineering tour.

At one point we had to climb a few meters high, very steep slope (not on the photo). The rock was loose and sometimes crumpling under our hands an shoes. I was not used to this and did not feel so good about it. Under the slope were a few rocks and then a hundreds of meters long steep snow and ice covered slope. A nice place to fall, roll and slide like shit… But despite my worries, we made it easily. Still it was kind of a near death experience for me. Racki did it in proper Racki-style and did not fear anything.

The view and the colors!

At the summit.

🥳

🐎 Here is this tour in Komoot.