In the western part of Uzbekistan, there is pretty much nothing. For a very very long flat distance. This place is called Karakalpakstan. Karakalpakstan was once a flourishing region with a thriving agriculture and fishing industry supported by the mighty Amu Darya River and the Aral Sea. Thanks to the lack of forward thinking by USSR decision makers, the Aral Sea no longer exists, the Amu Darya River is running dry, and many Karakalpak people have lost their livelihoods and contracted cancer and other diseases from the pesticide residues left behind. Ethnically and linguistically somewhere in between Kazakhs and Uzbeks, these people have partial sovereignty from the rest of Uzbekistan.
As travelers, the only time we noticed the additional freedom of this autonomous region was on the train. In the rest of Uzbekistan and in most other countries, there is a restaurant car on long distance trains which is the only place to buy anything onboard. In Karakalpakstan, local village babushkas pay a 5000 Som fee ($0.65, probably a bribe) to walk up and down the aisles and sell their products to any willing buyer. These babushkas literally bring a shopping mall’s worth of goods on the train, riding from their home village to the next village and then getting off to allow that village’s babushkas a turn.
Everything from toilet paper to smart phones to children’s clothing to the most incredible home-cooked meals was available. The food was all prepared in the babushkas’ home kitchens and they would bring insulated pots, dishes, and silverware to serve hungry train passengers. We each had at least 4 full meals, including freshly grilled shashlik, homemade meat and cheese dumplings, fresh bread, ice cream, plov, salads, and even smoked fish. To be perfectly honest, Central Asian food is, overall, horrendous, but this was a rare gem of a culinary experience. The 7 hour train ride across the Karakalpak desert was a high point of our trip so far, which was reinforced by sitting next to 2 other cyclists and finally being able to speak fluent English with people who didn’t question our sanity for not having a house and kids.
After the epic train ride, we left our bikes at the house of a random girl we met on the street in Kungrad and hitchhiked up to Muynak – a town that was once on a small peninsula in the Aral Sea but is now surrounded by desert. The truck driver who picked us up prepped us with a full history of the Muynak region and then dropped us off at the boat graveyard. Where fishing boats once docked to offload the day’s catch, now remain only rusting ship skeletons in the sand becoming slowly overgrown by desert plants. Along the canals which access the small amount of residual wetlands, locals’ handmade canoes line the shore, which are now used mainly to collect water grasses to feed the cows. It’s a pretty surreal experience to stare off into the endless desert which was once a flourishing aquatic ecosystem.
We hitchhiked back to Kungrad – a pretty dull town with not much more than a nice bazaar – and set off towards Karakalpakstan’s capital, Nukus. This week was the hottest yet, with temperatures topping at 42 C (107 F), so we began a schedule of riding a few hours in the evening, sleeping in the tent for a few hours, riding some more at sunrise, and then sleeping all day in a cafe. This was greatly enhanced by the existence of private dining rooms and tapchanas (low table with comfy tushuk mats to sit/lay on the floor) at nearly every cafe. The staff seemed to find it perfectly normal for us to sleep on the tushuks for 6 hours and only order a tea. And we weren’t the only ones doing this; many locals seemed to have the same idea.
Arriving in Nukus was a nice break from the rural life of the rest of Karakalpakstan. First stop: wifi and pizza. The pizza was pretty bad by European standards, but just having anything that wasn’t drenched in sheep fat was so refreshing. Best meal since the train. Nukus is also home to the ginormous Savitsky Art Museum, which you would probably find much more interesting than I did if you enjoy art museums. Three days later, we were back on the bikes, headed out of Karakalpakstan and towards greater Uzbekistan to the ancient city of Khiva.
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