Through almond thickets or a trip to the Tuzkan Lake, Jizzakh region, Uzbekistan

Hello! Today I would like to tell you about my second trip to Lake Tuzkan and a walk along the "Pistachio Ridge" - Pistalitau (by the way, as it turned out, the ridge is not quite pistachio). The first trip took place almost two years ago - in April 2019. Wow, two years have already flown by! It was interesting for me to refresh my memories of this place and, at the same time, take better photos. Last time I took photos with my old phone, the camera of which was slightly scratched. And the photos were a little bit blurry.

This time, I had a new phone, and for safety reasons I also took my camera. The memories of two years ago were fresh in my memory - bright blue water and bright blue sky, and the purest air between them.

To my great regret, the bright blue sky was not available. It was covered with white clouds. And with such unpleasant clouds that simply wighten the sky. Instead of hanging beautifully like pieces of cotton wool against a blue sky, adding beauty to the photos, these clouds simply blurred the lighting, making the photos look kind of faded. Well, at least there was no rain - basically not exactly I hoped for… Well, I'll have to go here for the third time. Actually, I do not mind :).

When we made a short halt, I photographed the air-plane flying above us. Because of this whitish turbidity, the plane itself is practically invisible ...

As before, we left early in the morning. I slept safely at dawn. The sky was overcast too, so that with a picturesque dawn a problem came out. Three hours later after leaving, we came to the Jizzakh region. On the road already familiar to me :). This was the final trip to Pistalitau this year. And I was lucky enough to jump into the last carriage. Apparently I was not the only one, because there were almost thirty people on the final trip - we were traveling in two minibuses.

For those who have not read my pervious post about Pistalitau, I will remind a little the toponymy of these places, and the toponymy here is very entertaining. Let's start with the fact that the mountain range that we are going to conquer is called Pistalitau. More precisely, this is a spur of the Nurata ridge. The ending "tau" in Turkic languages means "hill, mountain". Depending on the country and language, this ending can change to "too", "tag", "tog". "Pista" is translated from Uzbek as "pistachio". Although the bushes that are called here "pistachios" are actually almonds and not simple almond, but "prickly almonds" (Latin Amygdalus spinosissima).

This location is located in the Forish district of the Jizzakh region. The name of the area - Forish - is a modified name for the city of Paris. That's right – that Paris, which is the capital of France. Tthe connection here is quite interesting - in the XVth century the territory of modern Uzbekistan was part of the empire of Tamerlane. The capital of his empire was the city of Samarkand and, wishing to turn his capital into the greatest city in the world, Tamerlane ordered to build settlements around the city, naming them after the capitals of other countries of the world. Thus, according to the plan of Tamerlane, the rest of the capitals should have been only miserable villages against the background of his capital. This is how Paris (Forish), Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo and Sultania appeared in Uzbekistan.

Along the already familiar road, we drove up to the hill, unloaded and went upstairs. Last time I was impressed by this small rise - it seems like you are walking along an ordinary green hill and now you are taking another step, when suddenly a boundless blue lake opens up in front of you. Very cool! The enthusiastic exclamations of the group members served as confirmation of this.

In fact, the lake is, of course, not boundless, but very large and clouds hid the opposite shore. Therefore, it seemed that we were standing on the seashore. The lake is called Tuzkan - i.e. "Salty" and is part of the Arnasay system of lakes.
Once the lake was shallow and completely dried up in the hot season. However, due to large emergency discharges of water from the Chardarya reservoir: 21 cubic km in 1969 and 9 cubic km in 1994, Lake Tuzkan merged with the larger lake of the Arnasay system - Aydarkul.

Three years ago, the construction of the first nuclear power plant in Uzbekistan was announced. But the rumors have been going on for three years, and the construction still has not begun.

Last time I was attacked by a swarm of mosquitoes, though some meadow ones that do not drink blood, but nevertheless create inconveniences. This time there were much fewer of them and there was no such mosquito curtain in front of the eyes.

On the shore of the lake, filmmakers built a small fortress (a few years ago some historical film was filmed in these places). The filmmakers left, but the fortress remained, becoming a kind of local landmark. Usually tourists stop here for a photo session, a break and lunch.

When we climbed up, I saw on the stones some patterns resembling cuneiform writing. Apparently these are traces of some algae or worms that lived here - once millions and millions of years ago the sea splashed here.

Then we climbed the rocks. Last time it was little bit hard, but this time I climbed without any problems. This is what regular trips with "Mysterious Uzbekistan" mean! They will teach anyone to climb rocks!

Climbing upstairs, we arranged a short break and a snack.

While sitting upstairs, according to the old tradition, I took several photographs of "ladybirds".

The day was already windy, but above it only intensified. Therefore, we decided not to stay there for a long time - we took a couple of photos and went down to the cars.

The day passed quickly. On the way back, we stopped at a local famous cafe to taste the famous Jizzakh samsa - huge as a plate and full of meat. Then there was a long, long way home. After eating samsa, I dozed off, missing the sunset. Anyway, the dawn was also missed ...

Overall, I was glad to come back here again. Well, next week was trip to my dear Boysun and two days of terribly beautiful adventures. More about this in my next post.