Uzbek Campsite Reconnaissance, or My, How Close Kazakhstan Is!

Katheen's contribution:

This past Monday was Labor Day, and Mom decided to take us all into the mountains for campsite reconnaissance and a picnic. The Uzbek mountains are not as close as the Tajik ones were, so it’s a bit of a drive to go hiking. Mom had seen this nice lake (actually a reservoir), and wanted to check it out. Once we got close to the lake, we saw the dam. It was huge, and we thought we were pretty close to some awesome campsites. We found this winding road, and we went up and down, hoping to get close to the lake.            

But any side road was either part of some local’s dacha complex or led to a lakeside village. Turns out, Uzbeks are a lot like Tajiks. Wherever there’s a nice lakeside spot, there is bound to be a house. Now, we found plenty of not lakeside campsites, but Sophia had been hoping for a lakeside campsite, and apparently, Joseph agreed. When we drove out of the last village, Joseph was almost in tears. “Stupid Uzbeks!” he fumed. “We wanted to go camping!”

I was about done, but Dad wanted to go a bit farther. We drove until we got to this gated place with lots of semi-trucks. Dad got out and spoke to a guy in uniform. Turns out, it was the Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan border! None of us had our passports, so we drove back home. Now, we can say we have driven to Kazakhstan. We hope you also have an interesting Labor Day!