Hiking in Uzbekistan: Men with guns.
August 11th, 2006 by m.This is a story from my service. it took place in early fall of 2004.
My friend Nate and I have been looking at this hike for months now. On all of the highly accurate Uzbek maps (watch for flying oxymorons) we looked at there is a trail going north-south from Angren to Chimgan. basically this runs behind Parkent. The guide book says it should take 7 days. We decided to cut it in half by starting in Parkent and joining the trail on the way up to Chimgan, those of you who have been paying attention will remember that this is where I went snowboarding last winter, good job. We figured three long days and a taxi back to Tash-Vegas would do the trick. We spent the night in Parkent and got a ride to the trail head. OK it wasn’t actually a “trailhead,” but it is where all of the shepherds left the village to take their sheep to graze in the hills, so there was a trail. A big one. We knew that the trail we wanted ran just to the west of a large biosphere reserve, but that was about it. We started up the road to the reserve hoping to strike the trail heading north. When we reached the reserve without striking a trail we weren’t totally surprised because we thought that the trail could possibly run through the reserve itself. We stopped at the biosphere headquarters for a water break and Nate changed his pants. Then we set off into the reserve. All this time we had been following a small river with crystal clear water and many trees in their full fall glory. We both agreed that this was already one of the most beautiful places we had been to in country. They do not allow grazing or wood cutting and as we found out to our dismay later, neither do they allow jauntily dressed American hikers, no matter how good their Uzbek is. We walked along next to the river and even stopped for a swim at a particularly scenic pool. The water was ridiculously cold and while refreshing it was also painful to stay in for longer than a few seconds. After about two and a half hours from the HQ we ran into what looked like a herders hut with a large hay pile. It turned out to be an out-post for the rangers. We happened to arrive about five minutes before the real rangers and almost got away, but no luck. The hapless bumpkin who was taking care of the post was real surprised to see two white guys with packs stroll up to him and start speaking Uzbek. We figured out from him that we had missed the trail to the north, but not to worry. He knew a connector trail nearby which we could take to get back on the right trail. Just as we were about to get moving again the two rangers ride up leading a pack horse. They were also both really surprised to see us and this was less comforting because they were both packing assault rifles. They never actually pointed the guns at us, but one of them squatted near by and just stroked his. Rifle. They couldn’t figure out if we were just stupid lost tourists or spies or what. We luckily knew the name of their boss and some other higher ups at the reserve. That and our diplomatic ID cards convinced them that we were probably what we said we were. They would not let us continue on and seriously doubted our ability to tie our shoes let alone take care of ourselves in the mountains for three days. They asked us why we had not obtained permission to be out here from HQ. We told them that there was no one there when we stopped by. The rangers didn’t seem to believe this was possible. We were informed that we had to turn around and would be escorted back to the HQ. Our escort was a fifty something Uzbek who looked like he had no trouble handling himself out in the mountains and in fact informed us that he lived up there year round. As you can probably imagine Nate and I were pissed. We had lost the whole day and any possibility of making it to Chimgan by sunday. In an effort to work out our anger we decided to go as fast as possible. Bad idea. We weren’t really trying to out run the ranger, he was mounted on his horse, but anger has a way of affecting your judgement. What had taken over two hours earlier in the day we did in under one with the horse breathing down my neck the whole way. We only stopped once to catch our breath. By the time we got back to HQ I was spent and I think I strained a tendon behind my knee, but goddammit we showed him. I am still not exactly sure what we showed him though. At HQ we found out that there were in fact two guys there, but they had been in the back watching TV and hadn’t noticed us come by in the morning. We started calling these guys tweedle dum and tweedle dee. It didn’t even enter their head thay they might have been caught slacking on the job. They just happily made us tea. When asked why they had not answered the radio they said they couldn’t figure out how to change the channel on it. They then produced the radio and asked if I could figure it out. I played with the radio and created several satisfying beeping sounds. I must confess, however, that I did not succed in changing the channel. It was now after three in the afternoon and Nate and I were looking for a way to salvage the trip. Our captors generouly offered us lodging in their cabin, but we were still a peeved little at them and declined. Besides, we had toted all of our camping gear all this way and wanted to use it. This was bewildering to our hosts. Most Uzbeks have a horrid fear of the wind (it carries disease and evil spirits) and the idea of sleeping out in the cold wind when there is a house available seems crazy. Most of them also are unused to sleeping alone as most families sleep together in one or two rooms. The ranger considered it his duty to see the crazy, lost tourists back to civilization even though we insisted that we were going to camp out. He refused to listen and as he was still carrying that rifle we didn’t like to argue too much. As we had blown our selves out on our previous sprint, the hike back to the village was less than enjoyable. We were away from the river on a jeep trail and sore to boot. We employed the opposite strategy from the one we had before. We went as slow as possible and forced our guide to wait for us. He was still mounted by the way, bastard. We finally got to the hill above the village where we just sat down and rested. After convincing himself that we were whipped and warning us not to go back our mounted and armed host rode off into the sunset. In order to comfort the two of us I informed Nate that I was not impressed by the gun because I own the same one back home. And I do. It was a russian made SKS semi- automatic. It seemed less scary that way. I’m not sure why, but it did. As soon as the ranger was out of site we dropped down the ridge to the river and hiked back up stream about a mile. We found a nice spot in a canyon and made camp. We revelled in our little rebellion and even induldged in a campfire. We celebrated with crystal light lemonade and cheese melted on bread next to the fire. We had three days worth of food and only one night to eat it. We woke up in the morning and hiked back to the village and were in Tashkent by lunch.