A lovely day in Ruins

Consider this more a photo dump than an actual post. It's not that I'm being lazy and don't want to go into all the historical details of ancient fortresses. Although there is a bit to that. And it's not that after a while, to the untrained eye, ruins start to blend together and there's only so many ways to describe centuries-old sandy remnants. Although, yeah that too. It's more that sharing the photos this way does more to capture my experiences on this day.

It was my second of four days in Khiva. As I mentioned in the last post, that's entirely too much time for tiny Khiva so I was eager for something to do. As I entered through the city gate, a cab driver approached me about a tour to nearby ancient fortresses. He was referring to the day trip in town. Located about an hour and a half from Khiva, everyone does some version of this tour. Guides offer between 3-5 fortress variations. My guy threw a little extra into the mix. In addition to 4 fortresses, he promised a stop at a lake. His price was good, his English not so much but all I saw was an entire day's worth of activity.

A pattern was quickly established. We would pull up to a particular set of ruins and he would point me in the general direction of an informational sign. I would then skim the usually dry recitation of the site's history and wander around said ruin. The long and the short of it is that most of the time, other the name, I had no clue what I was looking at. With that in mind, here was my day:

Stop 1: Kavat Kala. Kala means either fortress or castle in Uzbek, so they are all "something" Kala. This one was actually a good place to start because it causes you to lower your expectations right off the bat.

I found myself wondering if I was looking at ruins or termite mounds. I now believe this stop is merely used to pad the numbers and set the guide apart from the 3 kala touts. 

A child approached to say hello and hit me up for candy. I asked him where the ruins were and he vaguely pointed into the distance.

Stop 2: Ayaz Kala. Now, we're talking. About what, I still wasn't sure but this was a much more impressive kala. 

Stop 3: Toprak Kala. Now we were fully in Lara Croft territory. There had clearly been a lot of excavation making it easier to get an idea of what I was looking at.

Stop 4: Kyzyl Kala. I felt like had been going in the right direction as far as the quality of the kalas. This one felt like where they possibly jumped the shark. The outside walls had clearly been reconstructed which kind of defeats the purpose of visiting ruins. 

But I will say that the interior portion was appropriately ruin-y. 

Stop 5: Akchakul Lake. So this is where the people are. I had seen more or less the same sets of tourists at all the day's ruins but the lake was full of local families hanging out and enjoying the day. 

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It was Friday so it is possible some of them were spending the weekend at the onsite yurt encampment. 

The menu was heavy on seafood and not the most veg-friendly but the beer was cold and the vibe cooler so there were no complaints from me. We hung out here for a bit before making the return trip to Khiva. 

I may have been a bit fuzzy on the details but the fact is I'd thoroughly enjoyed a day just roaming around ancient ruins and now just had to figure out what to do with my two remaining days in Khiva.