June 9, 2012

We had agreed to set up both of our alarms for five o’clock in the morning to make the long trip to the Seven Lakes region, but I was unsuccessful at arousing Eraj from his sleep. Even at seven, he was still sleeping while I felt ready to tackle the day. I walked into the courtyard seeking the guesthouse’s owner who had promised to bring me coffee to the room early in the morning, but he was nowhere to be seen. An older guy was in the office and through sign language I indicated my need for coffee. He brought a teakettle full of hot water, a tin of instant coffee and a sugar bowl with the requisite cup, saucer and spoon. The coffee tasted vile and I could not make myself understood that I wanted milk or cream in it.

My Megaphon modem was not working inside the room, so I decided to look at the pictures taken the day before and write my blog entries while Eraj came back to life. He got up at eight, and asked why I hadn’t poured cold water over his face as I had jokingly told me I’d do if he didn’t get up on time. We got dressed and proceeded to the market where the taxis left for the lake trip and quickly located a driver who offered to take us there for 300.00, or about $60.00, after he dropped off the passengers he already had. Eraj gave him his cell phone number and we went back upstairs to the same restaurant we had had dinner the day before and found the tapchon empty. I had two boiled eggs, flat bread and coffee while Eraj had sambusas. We also bought four different types of sambusas and cold water to take with us as we had been warned there were no stores to buy supplies along the route.

The driver came back in a worn-out Lada that didn’t look promising at all. In fact, before leaving the city, he stopped at a garage and while we were still sitting inside, pulled into the bay and had the tires and suspension checked. I kept shooting looks at Eraj that I didn’t feel safe while the car rocked from side to side. The driver had brought one of his nephews along and they both took pains to insure the car would not break down along the way. He had said the distance was only 30 kilometers, but such distance on an unpaved road can take forever. We were treated to fabulous views of the mountains while driving alongside the river and passing numerous small villages, two of which have started to offer homestays for tourists in order to make some money. The locals must have become accustomed to seen people like looking at them through the lens of their cameras and thus most of them turned their faces when they saw the car approaching.

The lakes in themselves are simply spectacular as they are set high up in the mountains, unspoiled and inaccessible, with their colors changing according to the weather and devoid of any human activity. We made it to the fifth lake in the car and then it would not go up any longer. Time to get out and trek to the number six one, but not before being introduced to friends of the taxi driver, who was an Uzbek, who were taking a group of students out on a picnic on their last day of classes. We were asked to sit down and share their meal, dance for a bit and then continue to the next lake with the whole troop of students coming along with us. There were the requisite group pictures and numerous individual ones taking using their cell phones. Some of the students spoke a bit of English and one of the female ones guided me into the bush, and near a stream, so I could empty my bladder.

On the way back, I was so sleepy that despite the heat and the dust, I nodded off several times and couldn’t wait to get to my room to take a short nap. Eraj reminded me that the next part of the festival was to begin at five, but I wasn’t interested in visiting the swimming pool and listening to the local mayor make pronouncements on anything. I agreed instead to be ready at six and take part in the concert after we had dinner. While Eraj was out in the courtyard, he met a young woman from Switzerland and was immediately smitten by her. He came in to tell me how beautiful she was and how much he wanted to spend time with her to which I threatened to inform her that he was a married man with a small child.

We requested a recommendation from the guesthouse’s owner as to a place for dinner and were directed to another rundown place where there was no menu, what a surprise, and only lukewarm soup and mantu to be had. My petit soup had no flavor, again nothing unusual, the flat bread was cold and the salad was just so so. The only saving grace to the meal was the fresh cherry juice which was brought in very cold. When we asked for the bill, the owner could not add up the items correctly and Eraj took the calculator from his hands and in an exasperated manner totaled our meal again coming up with 37.00 somoni. The owner looked on with an ashamed look on his face. As we walked out of the restaurant, the young taxi driver who had taken us to excavation pit spotted us and offered to give us a lift to the concert free of charge. Eraj managed once again to convince the police officer I was part of the VIP entourage and was offered a seat in the second row. The chairs were placed smack in the middle of the plaza and the sun was still beating mercilessly on us. My hand-held fan waved back and forth non-stop while musicians and dancers came and went.

The afternoon finally started to cool off and at the end of the concert, we were asked to proceed to where a giant screen had been placed and a film about the origins of the city was about to start. I was surprised to find it made entirely in English with not even subtitles in Tajik or Russian. Most of the chairs were occupied by foreigners hired by NGOS. or locals that seemed to be working with these NGOs. We were given a copy of the DVD and Eraj started asking questions from one of the organizers and the camera man next to him. At the end of that conversation, Eraj had finagled an interview of me for the local TV station with himself serving as the interpreter, but once I agreed to do it, he kept pestering me to rehearse my lines with him to insure he wouldn’t make a mistake and be labeled a fool by friends and family. I tried to reassure him there was no guarantee he’d get on TV in the first place and they must have had a good video editor to delete any portion that not deem of sufficient quality. I must have spoken for only 2-3 minutes, but we had to do a retake because Eraj faltered at one point. Once we were done, he immediately got on phone to tell his friends and relative.

We walked back to the guesthouse stopping along the way to buy ice cream and cold water. The Swiss girl and another woman were in the courtyard and after saying hello to them, Eraj begged me to go back outside and start a conversation in which he could take part. He is such a flirt, and I humored him for I knew this was our last night of traveling and little harm could come from having such a conversation. The girl in question, Rebecca, works for a small NGO in Dushanbe, close to the PedInst in fact, and does health related work for them, but she’s not a doctor or a nurse. We were joined by an older man from Holland and had a spirited discussion about the country ensued during which we talked about the loss of Bukhara and Samarkand as the centers of trade and culture, and how that loss had affected the sense of importance they used to have.

My eyes were begging for sleep and in spite of the great company, I excused myself and left Eraj to continue to flirt with Rebecca while I went to sleep. He came back after a while with a triumphant look on his face showing me she had given him her phone number without his ever asking for it. I have my doubts as to how this came about, but he had certainly scored one for himself.