Adventures in Asia: Aral Sea, Uzbekistan

After lunch, we carried on from Moynaq into what used to be the Aral Sea. In at least a portion of this area there is some infrastructure, but it is not robust. I think some natural gas extraction or at least exploration is going on, so there is a gravel road and some electricity infrastructure. Still, I did not expect to see a donkey!

Shortly past the donkey, we ran into another tour's SUV broken down. We stopped to see if we could assist. 

I am not going to be helpful in repairing a broken down SUV, so I walked down the road while we waited.

Eventually they gave up fixing the car anytime soon, and instead we consolidated three SUVs' worth of tourists into two, and carried on like that. Not long later we left the road and began traveling mostly on what I know as pistes, or basically Jeep tracks in the sand.

We stopped at a few especially scenic spots as we made our way northwest to the shores of what remains of the Aral Sea. 

We reached the far side of what used to be the sea, and there we stopped at an old, but not ancient, cemetery. 

The cemetery was our last stop before we reached the remaining sea around 17:00.

We are staying at yurt camp here. By the way, you can see how these yurts are much different than the more authentic yurt I stayed in a couple of nights ago in Turkmenistan.

After being assigned our yurts, Simona, Jana, and I got back into our SUV and the driver drove us up the coast to a scenic spot where the rock formations were colourful and we could see the sea well from up above. 

Next we headed closer to shore. 

Actually, in close proximity to the water, things were less pleasant. The Aral Sea is famously very salty and very polluted due to agricultural runoff, and although the water looks clean enough, the smell was not very good, and the "beach" was not a pleasant texture.

After this we returned to camp, where I was able to shower and watch the sun set.

A good dinner was served at 20:00 in the dining hall and after dinner we turned in for the night. I had this three-bed yurt to myself. 

The sun was rising over the sea when I woke up.

Before leaving, I walked up to a ridge behind camp to get a great view of the sea and the shoreline and the camp below. 

We headed out at 8:00, but stopped just about fifteen minutes away at the ruins of an old Khorzem fortified market. 

I clambered up to get a view from the top of the wall. You could see the sea again from up here. 

After this short visit we continued south along what was the western shoreline of the Aral Sea to continue our tour en route back to Nukus.