Bilderverkauf aller 50 km / Pictures on Sale every 50 km

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Beached Ships in the Desert

28th of October:

In the morning it is cold again and the tent is frozen from the inside. I remember the words of Nadja in Irkutsk when she said we will arrive in Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan in the winter. I am just happy that it is not yet snowing, but it is not really nice especially in the morning hours. Anyway, it is a really sunny autumn day and we have nice warm fire. As long as there is no rain or snow everything is fine.The trees around us are colourful. The leaves are yellow as the sun and some turn into orange or red. Around here it is silent, the only thing we hear are the falling leafs. It is like in the winter when big snow flakes are falling down, just now they are colourful leafs.

From here we start to Muynoq, a former fishing village at the Aral lake. We are visiting the beached ships which are standing now in the desert. There is something like a monument and around there some pictures which show how fast the Aral lost his water. Now the coast line is around 150 km away. Maybe in some years there will be no more lake at the Uzbek side. In Kazakhstan a huge dam was build to separate a small part of the former Aral lake. This lake still gets water from another river. It seems at least in this region the lake could be saved. Also the micro climate around there is stabilized. In Uzbekistan there is almost no hope. This year was the first year that some water arrived in Qunghirot which is still 100 km away from here. The last 3 years there was no water.

We go back to the place where we stayed the night before. I was thinking to drive to the new coast line of the Aral lake but with our broken shock absorbers this is no fun. Therefore, we decide to go slowly back to Qunghirot to arrive at the border at the 1st of November when our visa starts.

(N 43.31464°, E 59.05763 °)

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