After a surprisingly casual but eventful border crossing from Turkmenistan to Uzbekistan (I had my Turkmen flag confiscated, made what turned out to be an inappropriate joke about cocaine with the Uzbek border guards who also found a stash of undeclared US dollars in Charlie's bag), we arrived in the regional border town of Nukus.
We had planned a two day excursion the following day to visit the biggest man-made disaster in the world: The Aral Sea.
But of course we first needed to exchange the reserves of dollars we had taken out in Baku (In anticipation for difficulties or the impossibility that we could withdraw cash out in either Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan. We had been given a lot of conflicting information but I suppose we just wanted to be safe....) for Uzbek Som.
This was simple in principle, BUT this was Uzbekistan. Here the president had attempted to peg the value of the currency to a set value of 1700 Som per US dollar. The actual value, or the Black Market value, was 2500 Som against the dollar. A significant enough difference to ensure that practically the entire country worked at the black market rate and despite it being technically an illegal act, freely exchanged dollars and Som between themselves and foreigners, in shops, hotels, Bazaars, taxis, anywhere really. From my understanding, only big hotels or flight tickets were calculated based on the 'official' rate...
So, when we met the travel agent that evening over tea, he offered us to exchange our dollars. Cool, potential problem solved!
No, this is Uzbekistan. The highest denomination of note available was 1000 Som. So we each exchanged $100 each, you can do the maths.
We received around 2-3kg of 200, 500 and 1000 paper notes in a bag. This was dealt to me from a much larger box/crate of notes from the trunk of the guy's car! What a fantastic way to introduce us to this country!
Driving along the former seabed. The cliffs ahead were the former coastline.
A Brief History Lesson
The next day we headed north in order to reach the resided shoreline of the Aral Sea, once the 4th largest lake in the world, now the biggest disaster caused by mankind. Stalin's proposed in the late 1940's a 'Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature', a plan to turn the vast arid steppes of Central Asia into a farmland power house for the rest of the USSR. All of the rice, wheat and cotton plantations needed a significant amount of water.
Charlie, Sam and our driver, Viktor, with our Russian made UAZ jeep.
Thankfully two huge rivers were nearby, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya. These were diverted in the early 1960s to feed irrigation canals which weren't even waterproof. Thin and poor soil conditions meant that even more water was needed. Soon the Aral Sea began to shrink at a rate of 20cm a year. A project to refill the Aral Sea in 1986 was scrapped.
We drove for around 8 hours across arid steppe to get to the shore.
Sam looks out onto the delta of the Amu Darya. The river dries up before it can reach the Aral Sea.
Current Situation
The Aral Sea is now residing 80-90 vertical centimeters a year.
By 1998, the sea had lost 60% of its surface area and 80% of its volume.
This is equivalent to draining lake Ontario.
Our guide claimed that the sea had now reached 50% salinity, this has killed most it the area's natural flora and fauna.
In 1987, the sea split into two parts, the North Aral Sea and the South Aral Sea. We visited the south one.
Desertification due to the disaster has made life in the region very difficult, summers are hotter and dryer, whilst winters have become longer and colder.
The fishing town Moynaq, once on a peninsula in the Aral Sea, now lies 200km from the current shoreline.
An dam, built on the Kazakh side of the Aral Sea, now holds back water flowing out of the North Aral Sea into the South Aral Sea. This has begun to reverse the shrinking of the north sea but has doomed the South Aral Sea to disappear within the next 5-10 years.
On the cliff with the seabed behind.
After buying a substantial amount of refreshments that morning, we set off north towards what was left of the South Aral Sea. We encountered fewer and fewer traffic along the paved road that we sped along until it gradually deteriorated and became a dirt track.
Another break from our uncomfortable car journey.
At that point we followed some 4x4 tracks up a set of cliffs, rising out of the vast flatness of what was once the seabed. Surely the cliffs we ascended must have once had waves crashing against them. Once on top, more arid steppe continued into infinity.
We drove along sets of 4x4 tracks parallel with the cliffs, sometimes switching to a new set of tracks when it became too bumpy, not like it made a whole load of difference. Viktor seemed to have his foot to the floor as we sped along the dry landscape at around 80 km/h for a good 3 hours until we stopped for lunch.
After having some tasty fish for lunch (how about that) we set off again.
Another 3 or 4 hours later, it just appeared.
Our first sight of the Aral Sea.
We start descending the cliffs to get to the 'beach'.
We parked on an abandoned barge.
We were in shock. We had driven the whole day, almost 9 hours, across open, lifeless and immensely hot steppe to reach what was still a huge mass of water, apparently in the middle of nowhere. It was beautiful. I think because of the colour, the deep blue contrasted so sharply with what we had seen and felt (we were super sweaty by the end of the day), it was almost mesmerizing.
A can of tinned tuna I found. Food for thought?
Within 200m of the waters edge the ground became increasingly bumpy and difficult to drive across. Viktor pulled up on an abandoned barge that was sitting 50 meters away from the water.
I noticed that all of the ground up to 100m from the water were in various shades of dark brown, as the final droplets of water were evaporated from the earth. This had caused the surface to reshape itself into an uneven and lumpy appearance. There was salt everywhere. I was thankful that we had a firm surface where we could organise ourselves and get changed (Well if we came all this way here we had to try and go swimming!!).
Getting into the water was a mucky, difficult and slow process. The ground became less and less solid as we approached the water, until we were even straining to pull our own feet out of the mud to make the next step. Once in the water however, it was surprisingly pleasant, that is at least, if none of it went into your eyes or mouth! It was quite warm, and we all effortlessly floated around in the saltine water, pondering how on earth we came to be swimming in the Aral Sea, in the middle of Central Asia.
Floating in the Aral on an 'unusual' beach holiday.
Getting out was about as tricky as getting in.
Salt was everywhere.
Later that evening we headed back up to the cliffs so we could camp. Viktor prepared an incredible Russian Borscht, typically washed down with the local vodka!
View from near our camp of the former seabed and the sea.
Epic meal time.
Sunrise over the Aral Sea.
One way traffic.
The following day we set off at dawn to complete our loop trip via the former fishing town of Moynaq, now situated over 200km from the sea. To get there, we drove back down from the cliffs and drove along what appeared to be relatively new solid ground. Few shrubs had begun to grow and the earth was incredibly flat. It was here where it truly felt we were traveling along a former sea bed.
I struggled to envision a sea, teaming with life, flowing around us, possibly with the occasional boat floating 35 meters above the jeep.
Once we arrived at Moynaq, we visited the 'Ship Graveyard', a small collection of stranded boats that had been dragged to what was the closest thing to a memorial of the disaster. Again, in what felt and appeared so much like a lifeless desert, it was incredibly difficult to connect this tragedy to what life might have been like here 50 years ago.
There were several rusty, empty and graffiti ridden shells of former fishing boats.
Some were quite big.
Chilling in the merciful shade.
Trying to imagine this ship breaking waves in a fresh sea breeze.
One of many satellite images showing the demise of the Aral Sea. The outline is the size in 1960. We visited the South Aral Sea on the left hand side of the map.
Clues as to what life was like 50 years ago.
When I was planning this trip, and planning various interesting things to do along this trip, visiting the Aral Sea was quite high up on my to-do list. It was fascinating, how could so much water just... disappear? It was pretty funny actually, 'Oh look how badly the Soviets messed up here'.
The sea is 200km that way.
But spending 2 days driving endlessly around the disaster area, I realised it wasn't funny, it was shocking and kind of sad. The affected area was just huge, and we probably only saw a fraction of it. The climate has changed, demographics have changed, politics have changed, life for 99% of the people in this region ended with the demise of the Aral Sea.
People are now facing serious health problems, as the air quality has deteriorated and frequent dust storms blast the former fishing settlements. The fishing industry has collapsed, ghost towns are the only thing that is left of what was once a vibrant fishing community.
After arriving back in Nukus in the early afternoon, we bid farewell to Viktor and set off to Kniva, a historical city that became a highlight of our trip to Uzbekistan.
Taxi to Kniva, time to reflect.
Thinking back to what we had seen over the last couple of days, I can only hope that this ongoing disaster will somehow generate a greater international attention that it deserves. It has not disappeared, yet. There are unlikely, difficult solutions, but solutions do exist. Maybe one day it will be possible to take the ferry that once existed between Moynaq, Uzbekistan and Aral, Kazakhstan.
However, it unfortunately looks far more likely that this already impoverished region will continue to suffer as the last drops of this giant body of water evaporate. Similarly, the corrupt governments that have inherited this area will most likely continue to ignore this problem until it has all dried up and vanished in the wind.
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