After a good night sleep, and some weird dreams, we were woken up by our guestlady. She was asking if we were ready for breakfast. Herself she had to go into town early.
So we had a lovely breakfast and thanked our guestfamily.

Our next stop was the town of Moynaq. This used to be one of the most important economical towns in Uzbekistan. It was major harbour, and the locals were living from the Aral Sea. Due to irrigation projects done on the Amur Darya river, the Sea got smaller and smaller. The harbour town was only ghosttown now, and most of its inhabitants became jobless. It’s a tragic history of the town, but the locals still believe the sea will come back.

After a short ride we arrived at the open air museum. It was already quite warm in the morning, and we walked through the desert looking at the beached ships. The administrator told us this is dangerous place at night as wolves are lurking around here. Some ships were even stolen for scrap metal. It is amazing to see how human impact can change the environment.

In the town of Moynaq we made a stop at a small shop and ate some watermelon. We saw three polish tourists here who were walking towards the museum. I asked for fuel but nobody seemed to able to help.

The next stop would be Qonghirat, where we would look for fuel.

After one hour riding we reached Qonghirat and found a gas station. I asked the manager to put some fuel in an empty water bottle. The fuel was white, I smelled it, and it had a strange smell. I poured my jerrycan, which had still octane 93 fuel from Kazachstan inside the bike’s tank. I bought 3 liter from the station just in case.

The goal of today was Nukus, a city famous for its museum. With the fuel we had left, we should be able to get there. We felt lucky as the highway to Nukus seemed new tarmac. It was a nice and easy ride.

We got into Nukus in the afternoon, and started looking for gas and an Uzbek simcard. We ended up eating an icecream only 🙂

We saw about 5 gasstations and all of them were empty. They said next delivery would be on Friday. Today was Wednesday, did we really need to wait until Friday to find gas?

So we went looking for a hotel to get a shower and have a rest. The first hotel we saw, was the one the 3 polish guys were talking about in Moynaq. It was old Soviet style with a horrible bathroom. As we were having trouble finding gas we asked the hotel manager if she could help us. She gave us an address next to another hotel, named ARZ. We found the hotel ARZ16 and also the guy who could help us with the gas. His name was Aydos and he was really friendly.

He took us first to a friend of him who had the benzine. It was supposed to be octane 91, but I am not to sure about that. I think it was octane 80 and that is the only thing you can find around. When there are deliveries for gas there are really long lines of people with cars trying to buy it, until the pump is empty again. I was happy I could buy it from this guy. He told me that a few days ago french bikers also bought with him. So we put in 20 liters. I did a test ride and it seemed OK. After a while the only I noticed was there was some less power.

Then Aydos showed us the ARZ hotel, which had really nice rooms. Our decision was quickly made. We went back to the other hotel to get our stuff and moved into ARZ. Aydos would also help us get an uzbek simcard so we would be able to get online again. We would meet again tomorrow at 9 AM to do the “deal”.

The hotel had a nice bathroom which was very welcome. We washed ourselves and our clothes. Later in the evening I went to the lobby and had a Fanta from the fridge. It was a new addiction for me. The fanta in central asia is so good. I don’t know why but I needed my daily fanta from them on 🙂

I was standing outside at my bike checking things, when a man approached me. His name was Dgahongir and he was a banker from Tashkent. We talked about our trip and life. After a while a jeep pulled in from Unicef. The guy looked at us and come to talk with us. His name was Sasha. He was also from Tashkent and a very frienly guy. I went up to get Larisa, she is of course a lot better in Russian than me. We both came down and the four of us talked some time. Sasha told us about a nice restaurant. He even brought us there and we had a nice meal. The bill seemed enormous 🙂

Back at the hotel we had another chat with Dgahongir and he gave us a tip for the next day. The Savitsky museum is a must see he told us. Good thing, we knew what to do, and went to bed.