In April 2025, Helle and Peter were hiking Uzbekistans Nuratau Mountains with a local guide for two days.
We hiked during our 8-day road trip through Uzbekistan, where we also explored the Silk road cities Samarkand and Bukhara.
Day 1 – Arriving in the Nuratau Mountains
We had spent the night at Berunyi yurt camp in the Kyzylkum desert, and swam in lake Aydar Kol in the morning.
From the lake we had a two-hour drive to Asraf village in the Nuratau Mountains. We were going hiking with a guide from Nuratau travel. According to the plan, we parked our car at a guest house and were driven to Hayat village by the guesthouse owner. From Hayat we would use the following two days to hike back to our car in Asraf.
We were invited to an amazing lunch at Muso Baraka Nur guesthouse with Shodmon (the owner) and his father.
After lunch we took a walk around the village and further into the mountains with Tom and Rachel, two other guests. Shodmon’s father rode up on his horse to guide us back.
The guesthouse was a true paradise. The owners were friendly and hospitable, and the food was the best we had had so far. The guesthouse was run by a family, and it was good to see how they treated each other with kindness and love.
Day 2 – Hiking from Hayat to Uhum village
We had a delicious breakfast under the tress of the guesthouse’s fruit garden. They had walnuts, mulberries, apple, apricot and many others. Much of the food served came from the garden, and they took well-deserved pride in this.
We met with our guide Dilmarod at the guest and hiked over the mountain to the next village Uhum. We continued up the valley to the Nuratau national park, where we saw ancient petroglyphs.
The landscape is varied with trees and green grass along the rivers and completely dry on the upper parts. There are 300 years old walnut trees and many fruit trees along the rivers.
We arrived at Ulug Bek Guesthouse in Uhum by lunch and had a traditional lunch with salads and plov (slowly cooked rice with vegetables and meat) together with our guide and a family member.
The people in the valley are originally from Tadsjikistan and they speak Tadjik, Uzbek and Russian. The young people also speak some English. They have 11 years of mandatory school, and the local school have 400 students and 40 teachers. Quite impressive in size compared to the remoteness of the villages. Dilmarod explained that the oldest sons usually stay in the village and inherent the family farm. He himself was not the oldest, but he preferred to live in the mountains, so he had opened a guesthouse, and made a living from tourism.
Day 3 – Hiking from Uhum to Asraf Village
After a hearty breakfast we started our hike to Asraf through Uhum valley. The villagers have refined a system of irrigation channels for centuries, and the channels are still maintained and in use.
It was a beautiful hike on shepherd trails with views of Aydar Kol Lake in the distance and lots of fat tailed sheep, donkeys and cows.
Dilmarod showed us a traditional water mill that was still in use for grinding flour.
We arrived at Asraf Village at noon and had lunch in the very beautiful garden of the guesthouse. We had great Uzbek food in the mountains and this lunch was no exception.
With stomachs full we started our return trip to Samarkand. We drove over the Nuratau mountains, where large parts of the road was in quite bad conditions. Luckily the Kia Sportage had good suspension. The route was very scenic compared to the otherwise flat steppe countryside.