The border crossing west of Dushanbe was the most ridiculous so far. The Tajik Side went easy and fast but the Uzbek customs officers saw a need in “investigating” a lot of our stuff. Still feeling weak, I had to unload and unpack a lot of stuff.
The officers did just have brief looks at the stuff. For me this whole process made no sense at all.
So I got frustrated and a bit pissed. But I did not complain or refuse the process.
After the crossing we found a nice camp spot at a big water reservoir.
Especially with a group of young Uzbek guys we spent a bit more time talking about differences in German and Uzbek lives, cultures etc.
Some of them could speak fair English and indeed they were English teachers and so the communication was more fun than work.
As always they could not believe that Racki and I were not married and had no kids. Especially the kids topic was almost disturbing to them. We described how a romantic teenager Young adult love life may be in Germany and they were astonished.
After some days we met one of the guys at his place. We talked more and his mother and sisters did our laundry. We wanted to do it on our own but this was not possible and at some point it felt insulting not to let them do it
We tried to get it repaired in Uzbekistan but it was not possible. Mostly because of the Chevrolet monopoly. So we decided to go back to Dushanbe, to the car garage we had been to before.
There, our guess got confirmed: the bushing was gone. We felt bad about it because it was so obvious. But even mechanics we had check Rosinante for the squeaking noise did not recognize the destroyed bushing.
But it felt good that we found the reason for the squeaking noise and that nothing on Rosinante got several damage.
