Tajikistan - The Seven Lakes

After our sensational day out with Umed and his wife, we had one more day booked in Panjakent. We had probably had enough of the gritty town and our hard bed but our booking kept us there for another day. The place we had originally wanted to walk was a couple of hours' drive away but, after yesterday's big drive, we were keen to stay closer to home. We found an interesting gorge on our apps and decided to try to walk up it.

Some of the roads were really narrow. Passing was very challenging and usually involved a fair bit of waving and pointing and pulling-in of mirrors.

People hitchhike a lot there. It's usually expected that they pay for the ride. Never did I expect to see this though. A man put out his arm asking us for a lift - and for his goat and her kid!!!

As we approached the mountains to the north of the Panjakent highway, they looked spectacular in the morning light.

Umed parked the car at a village where the road ended. Umed was worried that we might start off in the wrong direction (we weren't worried at all) so he asked around. A lovely older man said he would show us the way! We didn't want to offend him so off we went. He took us up a track for a while until the right path was obvious and was happy to have his photo taken at the end. He didn't speak a word of English but he was really lovely.

The gorge began at the edge of the village. An old stone mill straddled the river, its wooden waterwheel suspended out of the water to protect it when it wasn't being used. I think it still worked.

The gorge wasn't as deep or as long as we expected but it was lovely. A small river meandered through it, forming small waterfalls in places.

Irrigation is so important in this country where there is plenty of water but it's all in the rivers. Even in this remote area, irrigation pipes ran in all directions, including high up the walls of the gorge.

As we climbed up, a huge bird, probably a buzzard of some sort, soared over us.

Where the valley flattened out, a small farmhouse stood prettily among trees and green grass.

Men with donkeys loaded with firewood came down from higher up the valley.

We returned to the village as school was coming out. School is attended in two shifts here - one from 8am until 1pm then the other from 1pm til 5pm. Kids only do one shift per day, but the teachers do both shifts.

High walls surrounded the homes. Some were made of stones in interesting ways.

We parked near a mosque. I didn't think it was that old but it clearly wasn't being used as it had hay stored in it!

Back in Panjakent we noticed a few signs of the previous Soviet times. Some very ugly buildings were dotted around the town. These are getting pulled down a lot nowadays though.

This Soviet mural on one of the old buildings probably has limited time left. Once the building goes, it'll go too.

On our last day, we climbed out of that awful hard bed in Panjakemt for the last time, grateful to be leaving it. We didn't know yet what a great day we were in for. 

Firstly, we had to fill up with fuel. The service guy (many petrol stations in this region have full-service filling) reached the top of the tank and went to remove the nozzle. For some reason unknown to us, Umed insisted on trying to get more fuel in. He kept getting the guy to keep trying. Umed bounced the car up and down, apparently in an effort to make more room in the fuel tank!

We left the town and were soon driving along a valley. As the landscape became more mountainous, we started seeing more donkeys.

There were several mines and quarries along here, including some owned by Chinese. Signs were in Chinese and Chinese trucks bounced along the rough roads.

It was a 1.5-hour drive to the first of the seven lakes. Called Haft Kul in Tajik, it's a very well-known destination. The lakes were formed by landslides cutting off the flow of the river and effectively creating seven dams, The region is a popular day trip out of Samarkand, in Uzbekistan, by tourists looking to add another country to their list, so we were prepared for the hordes.

The road turned to dirt a long way before the first lake. Some parts were rough. Our driver, Umed, didn't speak much English but he jokingly referred to the rough roads as massages.

The first few lakes were nice and were surrounded by arid mountains. The further we went, the prettier the lakes became. 

Lake 1

Lake 4. This was Nofin Lake, the lake we stayed on.

The scenery became more mountainous. Like a Sara Lee cake, layer upon layer of mountains staggered into the distance.

Lake 5

The road along the lakes was incredible. The narrow, dry, dusty track clung precariously to the sides of cliffs and hills above the lakes. When cars had to pass it was sometimes a hair-raising experience as one car inched closer to the drop that fell far down to the lakes below. We were amazed that such a popular tourist destination had such a dangerous road. 

If people were leading donkeys or cows along the road they made a big effort to get out of the way when vehicles approached. I soon saw why as Umed raced past them, not taking into consideration that the animals might move. To be honest, I think the animals knew better than to move in front of a car!

At one stage, we looked across to the other side of Lake 6 and there was a small landslide! The rumbling sound was amazing. We later realised the landslide was caused by new roadworks that were being carried out there. There were houses beneath the landslide area but none of them seemed to get hit, fortunately.

Even though we thought we had explained our plans to Umed he was very surprised when we asked him to turn up the valley we wanted to go up. Communication had been a bit of an issue. 

We had found what looked like an interesting walk to Komichora Pass from the village of Chorroha. Umed had never driven up there before. We felt like trailblazers as Umed has probably brought tourists to the Seven Lakes hundreds of times but had never branched off here. The road up to the village was fairly new and was a bit scary as it traversed scree slopes. 

The village sat high on the side of a mountain and was really interesting. Mud houses with flat rooves, similar to those we saw at Voru, were sparsely scattered across the hill. 

Like at Voru, animal dung was collected and dried to be used for fuel.

At this altitude, the views from the village were superb!

This was the first place we saw cows and donkeys that were a bit thin. There wasn't a lot of food for them to eat on these barren hills.

Men and children were keen to say hello while women hid shyly behind head scarves.

We started to walk and the views quickly became spectacular. We oohed and ahhed over soaring mountains and snow-covered peaks. 

The land was barren with only rocks and snow breaking the grey slopes. 

Snack time with a view!

Looking back down over part of the village.

We felt like we were out in the middle of nowhere, so we were very surprised to see white rocks spelling out CCCP, which is USSR in the Cyrillic alphabet, and the Olympic rings! This must have been here a long time!

As we ascended the wind picked up and the temperature dropped. A few heavily laden donkeys came down from the pass, their owners walking behind. 

The track steepened but was still pretty good and we made it to the pass without too much difficulty. We were breathless, not just from the climb but from the high altitude. We were now at 3,300m.

Finally we crested the pass. A cold wind howled up from the other side.

The view on the other side wasn't as mountainous as on our side, but the hills were gentle and greener and it was very tempting to walk down that side. It was a long way to a road that way though, so we reluctantly turned back. Walking back towards that view was sensational!

We'd seen very little wildlife on our walks so a colourful butterfly was worth stopping and looking at.

For scale, that's a house towards the bottom left corner.

Two teenage girls had been bringing a mob of sheep and goats to a cluster of mud buildings high up on a hill as we climbed up. On our return, the stock were safely home so the girls walked 500 metres over to the track we were on so they could see us. One came up close and said hello, hiding half her face with her scarf in the process. We stopped and tried to communicate but all we got was giggles, which was fine. We left and they returned to their shepherding duties but continued to call out "hello" until we were out of earshot. 

Back in the village, a chorus of hellos followed us back to where Umed was waiting. 

Cows in the village had sensational views!

At the bottom of this photo is part of our road back down.

It was the perfect walk - a decent hike without being gruelling and it was so rewarding. Woohoo!

Umed needed to drop into another guest house for some reason, so we looked around. The people were obviously friends of Umed's and made us welcome. They were cooking up a beef and potatoes dish in the large wok-like pots that they use here over an open fire.

We drove to our previously booked accommodation on Lake Four. Umed stayed there too, as did other drivers and guides. There were three other tourists as well. Dinner was a traditional meat and potato dish that we'd had before, and the same as the one being cooked above. It had lots of potatoes, a few other veggies and about half a dozen very small slices of beef. It was delicious and it was nice that all of us ate together. The drivers were a noisy lot though. They played YouTube videos loudly at the dinner table and talked loudly on their phones while we were trying to sleep. It's just cultural differences.

We were disappointed to find that our bed was hard, despite it having some extra mats on top. We didn't sleep well here at all. The view from our window was great though.

After a communal breakfast, which was fairly bland and disappointing, we were off again, this time to the seventh lake. Back along that crazy road we went. 

As it was early, there were no other tourists at one of the popular viewpoints on Lake Five so Umed and I grabbed some pics.

I always wanted to peel the "polarised" sticker off Umed's sunglasses. Yes, he drove along these crazy roads, or he passed cars on blind corners, all with a sticker covering part of his vision!

It was a still morning and the lakes looked particularly beautiful. Fluffy white clouds reflected on the surfaces.

The road stopped at the start of the seventh lake and we walked from there along a lovely path. The reflections were amazing!

We expected to see lots of tourists but, at this time of the morning, the only things sharing the track with us were some heavily-laden donkeys.

A small seasonal village sat at the end of the lake. Nobody was there so I had a look around. There were animal shelters and a dozen or so simple houses.

The sheep would have to duck their heads to fit in this shelter.

We had hoped that by the time we got to these mountains, it would be late enough to get autumn leaves. It was, but there were so few trees that the autumn spectacle we were hoping for was nothing more than a small splash. This was just about it!

We wanted to climb up to a lookout point that I had found on an app. We found the track and started to climb. It was so steep! It took us ages to reach the top. 

When we finally made it, we found a gorgeous friendly donkey and a small herd of cows there. 

The view of Lake Seven was wonderful.

When the sun shone, the water turned a stunning turquoise.

More reflections on the way back.

We had some packed lunches from our guest house (there was nowhere else to buy food) and Umed found a lovely picnic spot beside a river. Our lunch was deliciously flavoured pasta with potatoes and a half a dozen or so small slices of the same meat from the previous night. Plus there was bread, tomatoes and cucumbers. No shortage of carbs!

Along the lake road were a few villages, tumbling streams and stunning mountains. It was all so pretty!

Sometimes, we'd come face to face with an oncoming car. Umed knew where the passing spots were and made the other vehicle back up when needed, lol.

The guest house was full that night with an American tour group. Once again, we had beef and potatoes for dinner. We didn't know it until the next day but there was no room for the drivers, so Umed slept outside in the traditional outdoor seating area that they have. He said he didn't mind but we think he got cold as the nights were getting chilly at this altitude.

After a much better breakfast, we headed off on our last walk. This time our aim was another pass on the opposite side of the sixth lake. Again, the road up to the village we chose was quite scary. There were a number of times that I hung on and closed my eyes.

The road switched back and forth across the bare mountain side.

The village we started from was too far below the pass to allow us to make it to the top, so we just walked up for a while and returned. Again, there were some lovely views.

The mountains were so bare and rugged!

This line up the mountain stumped me. It looked for all the world like a path but who or what could walk up or down that? Then, to our amazement, we saw a man walking down the lower section of it! Not long after that, we saw a mob of sheep casually saunter across the face about 3/4 of the way up the scree slope. Unbelievable!

People were living in this house. They sure are tough!

We hadn't seen many goats so far, but there were quite a few very tame ones here.

We met Umed back in the village and found a log to eat our lunch on. Guess what it was - yep, pasta and potatoes with about half a dozen small slices of beef again!

We had to return via that same scary road and the difficulty was compounded by the fact that a car in front of us broke down! The car in the distance in this photo had to back up a long way to let him and us pass.

Our lunch that day was exactly the same as the day before. We were starting to think that they only had one lunch and one dinner at our guest house, and we were there for three nights. Umed must have had the same thought as he bought some fish from one of the villages on a lake as we drove through. They fried it up for him at our guest house in the same pots they cook everything in and he and John ate them with some local "cognac" that Umed had bought. 

They then brought out some plov for John and I. Yay - something different! It still had about half a dozen small slices of that same meat on top though. We all sat outside in the traditional shelter to eat. It was lovely!

A beautiful moon rose over the lake that night.

We returned inside to see the next tour group, mostly Canadians, eating meat and potatoes for dinner! They must have made the plov just for us!

The next morning, for the second time in this country, we were very happy to leave our guest house. I still hadn't slept well. We were sad to say goodbye to the wonderful owner, Jumaboy, though. He always smiled and tried hard.

We also met a young American/Costa Rican guy and gave him a lift back to Panjakent.

Umed took us to the Uzbekistan border, which isn't far out of Panjakent. It was sad to say goodbye to him. Despite his lack of English, he had tried hard to look after us. On day one, I must have said where we are going, so he called me 'Boss'. The name stuck. I realised it was more to do with the fact that 'Heather' is too hard to say, but it was a good way around the problem. He didn't call John by his name until the third day, which is when we introduced ourselves to his wife. She could obviously remember John's name. I just wish we could remember hers!

His other saying in English was 'No internet' when he was trying to use google translate.

I had been disappointed in Tajikistan to start with. The capital was downright weird and Panjakent was unattractive to me.

We had some truly wonderful days though, especially the trip to Voru and our climb to the pass. It seems that I needed to get out of the cities to enjoy this country.

Uzbekistan, here we come!

Boss and John