The adventures of Miss Lopez

After sorting my shared taxi ride with the hostel owner, Christian, the German guy that was sharing my room decided to come with me to Seven Lakes. Our taxi ride was set up for 1h30 pm. Two taxis showed up at 2h15pm, one to pick up the Irish guy who was headed to Khojand and the other one for us. One was a nice Lexus SUV with air conditioning and the other one an SUV as well, packed with 15 people. Lucky us we got the second option. How we even managed to get in the car with all the rest of the people is still a wonder.

They threw our backpack on the roof, Christian was a bit worried that they would fall, but we figured with 9 people in the trunk someone would see it fall. There was 3 people in the front and 4 in the middle (including us two). 9 in the back + the dude that jumped in and was holding on from the outside.

This is a 50 km ride that took over three and a half hour!! We were stopping every 2-3 km to pick up more people even the locals were like there is no more space or to deliver some food or thing. We also were carrying a lot of watermelons in the trunks. I mean talk about adventure, we had no clue where we were headed and if we would make it. This was an old Jeep, the driver was also stopping to put water as it was overheating. Not very reassuring. We also had to stop to hand in our passeport at the gate, even if the soldier didn’t even pay attention to us, I mean the car was packed with 17 people what did he care about two tourists? At one point, a teenager started hyperventilating and crying so we stopped along the river so she could recuperate. Going up the mountain with an old car fully packed, I still don’t see how we made in one piece. Let me remind you that it’s 37ºC here in Tajikistan. He dropped us off at a junction, there seemed to be a homestay sign, but the little house was locked and we had no clue of that was the place. We stood there for 5 minutes when two foreigner passed us by, they didn’t talk to us nor they let us know we were st the wrong place. We finally realized it was 200 meters up the road so we grabbed our backpack and starting hiking. Christian was pissed off with the two other people as they could have told us it was further down when they saw us standing there like idiots. We didn’t know what to expect.

After all the hype of getting there, we just took it easy for the evening. The following morning, we went to see the seven lakes (we were already at lake no. 4) luckily as going all the way to lake 7 was a 15 km walk / hike uphill !!! Of course, we also had to come back down!

When we arrived at the 6th lake, I asked Christian if he wanted to go for a swim, it was so hot. We saw locals in the lake all wearing fully clothing, i had a moment of hesitation at putting my bikini. In the end, I didn’t want to get my shorts and t-shirt wet so bikini it was. To be honest, they didn’t seem to care, they were just happy to spend some time with us. Water was freezing even for my Canadian Standards, I mean, it’s water coming from the glaciers, but we had fun soaking in for a few minutes at a time.

They invited us for lunch, which we refused as we still had to go to the 7th lake. These people are so poor yet they are very welcoming and we are always invited to eat at their houses. And it’s usually a four course meal!! We had bought tuna and our corn for our lunch. Unfortunately, Christian while opening it got tuna all over his t-shirt and shorts. He rinsed it in the lake, washed it at the homestay and just now put it in the washing, it’s still smelly. He just went out saying that he needs to sort out the tuna situation!! I told him maybe he will find a girl that loves tuna 😂😂.

It was time to get moving towards the 7th lake. It was difficult to reach our final destination, not because of the going up or altitude, but because it was midday and so hot. Crossing lake no. 6 was also very long over 45 minutes walk. In my opinion, that was the most beautiful lake.

The views were just amazing and although I took lots of pictures, not even sure it will recreate what I saw. This is the main reason I came to Tajikistan.

Very proud of our 30 km walk uphill!!