Spent
the morning doing photos and blog. Finally finished May - catching up
slowly.
Watched a guy wade across the first Chanel with his two cattle then he swam
them across the next one to leave them on an island.
We
moved on about 1400hrs, realizing it was too late to vist Khiva so
stopped in Urgench at a big market place and bought some more fruit
and had a late lunch.
I assume they cut the grass and cart it home to their animals.
Boys swimming in a canal in the middle of a small town.
Modern transport!
Many 3 wheeled tractors here Smaller turning circle??
We
then needed a camp. Drove south to a lake which straddles the Turkmenistan border. We followed a ute out a bumpy road and it
turned off onto a track heading to water. We followed and realized we
were probably on private property. While John turned around I went to
talk to the guys in the ute but couldn’t make myself understood. As
I turned away another guy was walking toward the ute. As I climbed in
with John the third guy hailed us. We stopped and chatted. He told us
where to go about 5 times then bade us follow him. He took us around
to another road that cut across the lake. We stopped by a small house
and he unlocked and showed us around. The guy has 80 hectare of the
lake to farm fish. He told us to camp and he’d be back soon.
He arrived back and took John for a drive down the road to their fish
boat. We were invited to dinner and they’d be back in an hour.
The guys our catching our dinner!
By 2130hrs we had given up on dinner and had our first glass of
wine since arriving in Iran. Then around 2200hrs they all arrived back with a
young guy, Steve, who spoke good English. An interesting night. We
both had some vodka but John was pushed into a bit more than me. The
fish was very good, a white strong flesh but with lots of Y shaped
bones.
Although
this is Steve’s hometown and our host and Steve’s father are
friends, they now live in Tashkent, Maybe we’ll catch up there.
Crawled
into bed just after midnight. So much for early nights.
62km
62km