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August 23, 2007 – Our Adventures along the Silk Road Continue
Our adventures along the Silk Road and across the expanses of
Today we enjoyed the tour of their factory, and we also took lunch with the family and watched the beautiful tapestries via fabrics they were making as well. It was a mid-morning stop. Afterwards we continued out across the desert. We stopped at a small desert town where we could tell a lot was going on, and we found there was a raffeling match. Raffling is a very big sport in Uzbekistan and hundreds of people had powered their trucks, rigging donkeys and horses, small motorcycles, anything they could to this desert outpost to watch the sporting event. We also watched a volleyball game and various other activities, in a carnival-like atmosphere. It was really a spirited day out in this little desert town.
Of course, the real focus of the day today had been to get out to the Yurt camp. There was a peaceful laughing place, still in the heat of the desert when we arrived but later as the sun began to set and after we had moved into our Yurt and relaxed a bit, Alex and Julie, and Jim and Linda took off on a camel ride. They rode the camels around as the sun set across the desert and it really was a beautiful time. Now, I’m calling you from the town of Nurata, which is a town of about 25,000 people, in an oasis in the desert, a lot of very old history involved with this town, Islamic history, it’s a holy place and even of more interest to us, and going back further, Alexander the Great had built a fortress here in his preparations to seize Samarkand and when this fort was built, this was in an extremely important location.
All Text, Images and Audio Files © Berg Adventures International 2007 |
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Yesterday, after we left Bhukara, about a one and half hour drive out of town, we stopped at the ceramics factory of some old friends of Berg Adventures in this area. Now the daughter of the master potter met me at the door and asked immediately, “if Leila get home okay with her ceramics?” And I was happy to report that I had talked to 
Further along the desert, we stopped along the way and saw a motorcycle that had been reworked to have a truck on back that was hauling melons around to the desert towns. We enjoyed talking to the gentlemen who had the motorcycle, checking it out and we purchased a few melons out in the middle of the desert for these guys.