Day 45

Our next plans are:

-Tià is leaving Urganch early in the morning to arrive to Bukhara around midday and avoid the heat in the middle of the desert.

-I’m going to Samarkand with Paul and Clémence on their car.

-Tomorrow morning Tià drives to Samarkand to meet with me and we stay there to visit the city.

As planned Tià wakes up before sunrises and starts riding from Urganch to Bukhara, he arrives at our hotel before our departure!

Here you have Tià having fun alone in the desert:

He is tired, but he decides to ride with us to Samarkand. A bit crazy because that means to ride 740 Km and almost 11 hours in one day along Uzbeck’s roads (not the bests in the world as you already have seen). All of us feel a bit lazy today, so we have a relaxed lunch, and then we start going to Samarkand a bit late.

The road is fine almost all the time, but it’s hot and Tià starts to feel tired after some hours riding under the sun. The problem is that we cannot stop a lot, the sunset is coming and no one want to be on the road during the night. At some point we stop for fuel on a gas station, as usual we get 90… The Bonnie is not happy at all with it. There, we met some young guys with their mongol rally cars. They are also going to Samarkand, so we start driving as a convoy. Paul is the first, then Tià with the motorbike, and then the two mongol rally cars.

The sunset starts at the same time than the potholes. Those are really bad news for Tià, he cannot see properly with poor light and the road starts being worse and worse. We stop when the sun is already gone right after an off road portion of the road; he almost fell there. We have to find a solution, it’s way too dangerous to keep riding even going between our friends cars. First of all our friends try to put more lights on the motorbike, but that’s not the problem. Tià cannot continue with this conditions. Then, Paul says that he can ride the Bonnie until the next village. For the first time ever, Tià gives the Bonnie keys to another person!

We arrive at the little village, and there we have another problem… We need to find a place for Tià to stay. We try in one residence, but they say that is not allowed for them to host foreigners (Uzbeck politics about tourism are a bit estrange, as a tourist you can just sleep in approved hotels, you are not allowed to sleep in private houses or camp). We start asking around, it’s late and there is not a lot of people in the streets, until we find a man that says that he can help us. The problem is that he is not speaking English at all. Finally we find a translator, it seems that this man is the director of a residence of students, and he is offering a free room for Tià!!! He is our saviour!

Tià in his improvised hotel:

After leaving Tià with this man, we keep going to Samarkand. We arrive really late at night.