TEXTILE TOUR people - 17 April is also the departure day of the textile tour - so you are in the same hotel and ready to start the extension.

CERAMIC TOUR people - your tour finished on the 16th so you will need an extra night to be ready to start the extention. We can book it for you.

The Aral Sea Extension is planned as an optional add-on to our Textile or Ceramic Tour.

We will start from the hotel those tours finish at.

For those flying in to join us, we can arrange airport transfer with an additional fee.

Ceramic Tour people will have an extra night in Tashkent between jaunts.

Start with an early flight to Nukus, 

we are on the road!

The Nukus Museum of Art, or more properly the State Museum of Arts of the Republic of Karakalpakstan named after I.V. Savitsky. It is located in Nukus, Karakalpakstan and is home to the world's second largest collection of Russian avant-garde artworks, as well as galleries of antiquities and Karakalpak folk art. 

We are hoping to have a private viewing of some of the ceramics collection. 

The government and other NGO's are putting a lot of effort into the area to help locals develop alternate forms of income, since the shrinking of the Aral Sea., as well as working on trying to get water to build up in the Sea again - a large and complex problem we will hear more about.

Local handicrafts are flourishing, liquorice cultivation  [it thrives on saline soils] and  harvesting brine shrimp, also known as Artemia or "sea monkeys". These shrimp are crucial for the global aquaculture industry, and their tiny eggs, called cysts, are harvested from the Aral Sea and used as food for farmed fish.

We will visit the ceramic workshop of Salamat this afternoon.

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We're off early today- heading to Muynak. This sleepy town was once a thriving fishing port.

Today it hosts a Ship's Cemetery. 

The Muynak Museum is interesting with paintings by F. Madgazina and R. Matevosyan, who captured on their canvases the greatness of the Aral Sea and the beauty of the Amu Darya River as it once was.

Home cooked lunch today with a local family.

Then we are off heading across the bottom of the Aral Sea towards the Ustyurt Plateau. We will stop at the magnificent canyons of Ustyurt for a photo shoot.

Later in the day we will arrive at the seashore and walk along the coastline, and settle into our yurt camp and a delicious dinner.

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Join us - 06:00hrs for an early start - it will allow you to watch the amazing sunrise over the endless sea, and mark the start of another amazing day.

Exploring the area we will visit the Kurgancha-Kala Fortress on the Ustyurt Plateau. Constructed in the 12th-13th centuries. The exact history of Kurgancha-Kala remains a mystery, as there are no historical records detailing its purpose or history. 

It is thought it once served as a frontier outpost on the northern borders of Khorezm, and possibly as the last caravanserai for merchants daring to cross the barren Ustyurt Plateau.

Along the way we will pass the Cemetery of Nomads and then explore the the descent from the Ustyurt Plateau through an area of canyons that feel like a Sculpture Park.

Lunch will be a yurt-home cooked meal and the tour continues to Cape Aktumsyk, walking through the picturesque places of Ustyurt: high canyons, Martian landscape, mysterious cave, and picturesque slabs of stone.

We sleep in anew cosy yurt camp tonight.

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Will you do it? 06:00am  

Early rising to meet the dawn, which paints the sea in delicate shades.

Breakfast and off again.

Komsomolsk Kubla Ustyurt as a small village out in the middle of nowhere.....

Against the background of the village landscape, you can capture camels and horses in your photos, walk along the abandoned Soviet runway, taste camel milk from the locals- just hang out and BE 😊

We will move onto Sudochie Lake, a former part of the Aral Sea, where numerous migratory birds nest, including pink flamingos. This place is a real paradise for fans of wildlife watching.

Barsakelmes was a former island, the largest in the Aral Sea. 

Its area was 133 km2 in the 1980s, but as the sea became more shallow it steadily grew, until in the 1990s it ceased to be an island. 

 "Barsa-Kelmes" means "the place of no return". It was given such a name because of a number of stories of people (or groups of people) returning years or even decades after going to the island, thinking they had been gone only 2 or 3 days. There are lots of creepy Urban Legends surrounding this area- you'll be sure to hear a few.

Great photo opportunities on the Salt Flats.

On the way, we will pass through the Kungrad and Khojaly districts, which played an important role during the Great Silk Road. 

We will explore the Mizdakhkan Necropolis in the Khojaly district. Mizdakhan Necropolis, ancient cemetery, located next to the remains of the Gyaur-Kala fortress, is one of the oldest and most visited pilgrimage sites of Karakalpakstan. 

The fortress received its name during the Arab conquest, and means “a fortress of disbelievers”, as scientists found that the inhabitants of the fortress used to be Zoroastrians before the Arab conquest. 

Amazing ruins to visit with tombs from VI century BC - IX century AD.

And then we will be back in our hotel in Nukus.

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Early flight to Tashkent, we will drop our bags to the hotel and have an afternoon free to visit those last minute places in Tashkent.

Let's share a Farewell Dinner together, back in the modern world after those amazing days far, far away looking for the Aral Sea.

B,D

 Departures from Islam Karimov Tashkent International Airport, Uzbekistan.

We’ll drop you to the airport to meet your flight.