24/8/2019 0 Comments Meet OphilieWe met Ophelie while we were waiting for our boat to Kazakhstan. She had been there for two days already. Later we went on trips together to the underground Mosque of Beket Ata and to the Aral Sea, splitting the costs of the tours. In between we travelled separately, but we kept meeting up, later also in Khiva, Buchara and Tashkent. In total we must have spend almost two weeks together, most of that time was spend in the waiting room of a port, on a boat or in the back seat of a jeep. Whatever the situation, Ophelie proved herself to be a true honey badger, she simply doesn't care. She always keeps smiling and stays in a good mood. That's one of the reasons we like her so much.
Ophelie normally lives in the north of Quebec in an Inuit community, where her parents work in a hospital. She's now 7 months old and she has been travelling half her life. The next six months she will slowly work her way up to Mongolia and then back to Europe with the Trans-Siberian Express. Oh, and we also really liked her parents, Julie and Nicolas, des vrais Québequois. They were good fun and made travelling with a baby look really easy. (Note: Her parents don't post pictures of Ophelie online, something we really respect, so we won't do it either)
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24/8/2019 0 Comments "C'est perdu"We drove for hours, bumping along sandy roads, through the once sea-bed of the Aral Sea. Miles and miles of desert stretch out as far as the eye can see, no water in sight. Finally at the end of the day, we came over the hilltop - once the shoreline - and made a deep descent. And there it was, the remnants of the Aral Sea.
We both grew up hearing about the shrinking lake, about how everyone thought they would find a solution to this man-made ecological disaster and then seeing how agreeing on actions between countries proved impossible. Since the 1960s, the lake has shrunken by 90 percent with the salinity shooting up to three times its natural. As a francophone guide told us, 'c'est perdu'. The reason? The Soviet's plan to turn more of the the arid semi-desert plains into cotton crops which meant huge irrigation projects effectively cutting off the source rivers of the lake. The result: lost livelihoods, rusty boats lying stock still 200 km from the water, desertification, toxic dust storms whipping up now exposed salt and left over toxins from a Soviet biological weapons testing site (both harming crops and health), and an odd 'disaster tourism' industry. We felt strange being there. It was stunningly beautiful, but it felt eerily quiet and empty and unnatural. Floating in the water was unforgettable, like lying on a lilo, but we knew that the salinity which allowed this had also killed off all the fish and even sharks. We don't know if it's really going to disappear by 2025, like the guide said, but nonetheless we both had the feeling that this is one of those things we would look back on and think how lucky we were to see it. 6/8/2019 0 Comments Art from the GulagsWe are not the most cultured people, but we do try to visit a museum once a while. So far, we have had mixed success. The museum about the Armenian Genocide for example left a deep impression. However most museums we have seen so far are not particularly inspiring. It keeps suprising us how quick people are to call a little room with some old pictures and a whole bunch of random stuff a history museum.
So it was with limited expectations that we went to the Savitsky collection in Nukus, a town in the middle of the desert of Uzbekistan. We were passing through on our way East, so while we had heard some good things, we had no idea what to expect. We left the museum realising that we just had our biggest cultural suprise on our trip so far. You have to judge the quality of the art yourself, but we liked many of the paintings. They made a difference to the typical propaganda-laden Soviet art, with the collection portraying much more the grim realities of Soviet life. What captivated us the most was the story behind the museum. It's home to the second biggest collection of censured art from the Soviet-era, second only after The Hermitage. For years and years Savitsky travelled through the Soviet Union, collecting art and hiding it away in Nukus, something he could only do because it was so far from the watchful eye of Moskow. Savitsky's efforts meant that tens of thousands of censored pieces of art were saved from destruction, and equally that the names of their artists, many of whom ended up in Gulag camps, were not forgotten. 6/8/2019 1 Comment Pilgrimage in the desertDisembarking off the boat in Aktau, Kazakhstan, we had few plans for sight-seeing. This is the most remote corner of the country, and honestly we just saw this as a stepping stone on our way to Uzbekistan. But thanks to Julie and Nicolas who we met on the boat, we ended up tagging along to visit the underground mosques of Beket-Ata.
This amazing place, set into the rocky cliffs on the edge of the desert is visited every year by many pilgrims. And a handful of tourists. We had the sense of participating in something very real, often unsure as to what we were supposed to be doing or if we were supposed to be there. We made the trek to the mosque at sunset, held prayer with the immam in a cramped white cave in the rock, and one by one walked three times around a wooden branch making a prayer. Then we shared tea, biscuits and food with many Kazakhstani around a long table in the eating room. We were surrounded by a group of young girls and women, fascinated by our story and trying to teach as some Kazakhstani words. Then we slept - men in one room, women in another - squished together between many sleeping bodies, weary from sun, prayer and talk. The women's room was busy, with children buzzing about after over-consuming sugary cookiers all day. The men's room was also busy with snoring elderly so Jasper preferred to sleep outside under the stars, and much to his disappointment the next day, on top of a pile of bird poo. 6/8/2019 0 Comments Petrol cityAfter two weeks in Azerbaijan we took a ferry across the Caspian Sea to Kazakhstan. We had heard some horror stories about people being stuck for days in the port, which is located 75km from Baku in the middle of nowhere. We were lucky and only had to wait 36 hours, time we spent talking and watching movies with other travelers. We couldn't do much more, because it was impossible to get exact information on when the boat would leave. There was only a small office and every couple of hours we went there to ask about the departure time. After a couple of visits the man grew tired of us, which led him to brilliantly answer his own questions: "Today? Yes! Time? Maybe!" And that was all he had to say.
The crossing was smooth sailing and took only 30 hours. We were a bit sad not to have another three days at sea like when we crossed the Black Sea. All the more, because on the Caspian Sea there's suprisingly a lot to see. A few hours off the coast of Baku we suddenly passed a series of abandoned oil rigs. In the far distance we saw something that looked like land. "Petrol city", one of the crew explained. It took Google to fully understand what he meant. In the middle of the Caspian, there's a complete artificial city built on hundreds of oil rig platforms. It's called Oil Rocks or Neft Daslari and it's the place where the oil industry first began deep sea drilling. Today still 2.000 people live in the city. Travelling you always come across interesting places you have never heard of but this one in particular we found fascinating. "You do know Armenia is our number one enemy?" an Azerbaijani border guard asked firmly but friendly, when he saw the Armenian stamp in Jasper's passport. We talked about the deep and persisting divisions in the Caucasus in one of our previous posts. This border control conversation was just more proof of this. What has striked us as well in the region is the many similarities, something the people themselves probably don't notice, or prefer to deny. To give just a few examples, biking through these countries we experienced everywhere the same friendliness and hospitality, enjoyed the same incredible mountain views, the similiar food and drinks, and the same silly hats, that make you look like you have a sheep on your head.
Still it's also true that these three countries are very different to each other. Azerbaijan for example, a country that only ended up on our route after we changed our itinerary, is an Islamic country. We were very excited to start travelling in the Muslim world for the coming months and Acacia entered well-prepared by wearing clothes that covered her shoulders and legs, only to see young girls in hot pants in the first town across the border. Other than the change in religion and associated cultural habits we will remember Azerbaijan for its dry rivers beds and nice road-side restaurants that proved to be very nice camping grouds, but most of all for its old Lada's filled to the brim with watermelons and beaches with oil rigs. We were so happy to have friends and family come to visit us in Georgia so we could share our love for this great country. And they bought us essential treats from home like Belgian beer, maps and marmite.
Our friends Evelien, Johannes and their lovely little daughter Mona even cut their summer holidays short to keep their promise of visiting us along the way, we were so honoured! Along with Acacia's mum, who also came to visit and who impressed many people by travelling solo through the region,we all spent a week together in Tbilisi and in the stunning surrounding mountain region of Kasbegi. As the cherry on the cake, Evelien and Johannes asked Jasper to be the godfather of Mona's little brother or sister who is on the way. It's something really exciting to look forward to when we get back home! |
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