Trip Guide

We’ve only driven 20 minutes outside of the capital of Uzbekistan, Tashkent, and it already feels like we’ve entered a different world. The soviet style apartment buildings and lush parks of Tashkent dissipate into dusty villages and farm land. We are off to spend the day in the unfamiliar of Zaamin National Park!

I first became interested in visiting Zaamin National Park after reading an article about the elusive snow leopard that exists in the park. I had no intention of finding any snow leopards but after seeing pictures of the mountains and Juniper forests in the area I knew I wanted to visit before returning home.

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There were no direct trains from the city of Khiva to our new destination, Bukhara, Uzbekistan. Instead, we took a shared taxi the 5 hours east. I was dreading making the long, bumpy drive crammed in the back seat of a rusty 1962 Lada squeezed between three old Uzbek men headed in the same direction.

As it turned out, the drive wasn’t as horrible as the Lonely Planet forums had led me to believe. A new highway, and I use that term very loosely, has been built that takes you half the way between the cities of Khiva and Bukhara. From there the next road makes it feel like you are riding right through the middle of the desert. The sand seems to be overtaking the road, leaving only one-lane to drive on.

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On our way to Khiva, we visited Chilpik or the “tower of silence”. Dakhams are circular walled structures built on the top of hills. The dead were left inside the walls to be exposed to birds which eat the flesh. The bones are then dried in the sun and put in a central well. In an arid climate like Uzbekistan, they disintegrate into a powder. This Zorastrian burial practice pre-dates Islam which arrived in the region in the eighth century.

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From Nukus we were able to find a shared taxi to the former fishing village of Moynaq. The 220 km drive took 4 hours and was far less bumpy than one would expect for being so remote. As the 6 of us snuggled close in the tiny car, the clouds hung low threatening us with rain. Passing through the small villages we could see first hand how shaped the land had become from irrigation canals siphoning water from the Aral Sea to the cotton fields.

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