July 4th, 10am
This is as far west as I’m going to get, 26 kilometers from the Uzbekistan border.
4th of July and I’m having my own celebration. The trail is beginning.
Bushwhacking through thorns and brush through flowers and bees stepping over the bear poop and continuing on to the East, crossing one stream and getting my feet wet in walking across the bridge over the next one, climbing up to a hut and meeting my friends from yesterday plus four or five other reservation workers.
I say hi, shake hands and before walking off they say “Chai budish?” (you drink tea?) And I say sure, why not.
We sit together and drink tea then the food arrives and we eat some soup and the cards come out and we start playing Durak.
At one point some of the guys told me “okay we’re leaving do you want to come?”, but I was having a really good game so I decided to finish the game and start walking after that.
I got some water and started walking back toward the village of Ak-Tash without the horses showing me the way. I got lost a couple times in the brush and eventually found the trail.
The trail climbed up and down, and I got to the last stream crossing before the footpath ended and the dirt road started.
I skipped some rocks across the stream and headed up.
July 4th, 16:00
All of a sudden I hear a noise in front of me and I see a soldier coming out of the bushes and pointing his AK-47 at me.
I was a little startled, but I knew I had nothing to worry about so I smiled and calmly said “Kandaison” which means how are you in Kyrgyz.
The guy gives me a weird look. Maybe he was expecting a different response, and suddenly I hear of noise to my left. I look over and I see another soldier jumping out of the bushes and pointing his gun at me. I look at him and say “Kakdila” which means “what’s up?” in Russian,
Then another soldier jumps out of the bushes with a gun. I’m out of local phrases so I just say “hey”.
They look at me for a while and I try to say something in Kyrgyz. I understand they need me to throw down my hiking poles, the dangerous weapons I have with me, and they take a quick look through my backpack, then I pack up and we start walking together. I’m not sure what’s going on but I figure that we’re going in the same direction. Also it’s not like I have any other choice…
We walked up a hill, and at some point I noticed that I’m walking a little too fast for them and they seemed out of breath, so we stopped and I gave them some water to drink and we kept going. We stop again at the top of the hill to rest. I pull out my ukulele and play a couple songs and we move on. Eventually I see a car and for some reason, just before arriving at the car, when I could already see the car and their Commander, they blindfolded me. We walk another 50 meters to the car and they take the blindfold off.
Their captain was able to say hello in English but not much more than that.
He asked me to empty out my backpack so I spread everything out, every single item. He looks at it and tells me to pack up.
(At this point they have my phone so sadly there’s no way I could take any pictures of the event.)
I’m still not sure what’s going on, but we get in the car and start going down the hill towards the village. When we see some people they decide to put the blindfold back on for another 10 seconds.
July 4th, 23:00
We drive to the village and after stopping in front of the border guard station, they blindfold me again and walk me into an interrogation room.
They take the blindfold off and start asking me questions using Google Translate.
What are you doing here? Who are you with?
Why are you going to Uzbekistan?
Who am I planning to meet in Uzbekistan?
What are you doing in this area?
And I answer every question calmly and honestly knowing I have nothing to hide.
Again they ask me to empty out my entire backpack. They tag and write down every single item counting my money, looking at my passports and photos on my phone.
After a few hours of the same questions over and over they tell me to pack everything back up and get into a car.
I’m seated in a car with the captain in the front next to the driver and me in the back between two big Kyrgiz guys with guns.
We drive for a while. I’m trying to ask where we are going and what we are going to do, but they do not answer. I’m not sure why it was so important for them to keep this a secret but eventually we got to Kanoshkia, the big village of Chatkal Valley.
We enter a large building that looks like a government office, climb up the stairs and sit down in front of an older man in a suit and a woman by his side.
The woman starts speaking English, telling me she is the local school’s English teacher and she will be translating for me.
At this point the official, wearing the suit and the border police captain, start the whole process over again:
What are you doing here? Who are you?
Why are you going to Uzbekistan?
Who are you planning to meet in Uzbekistan?
What are you doing in this area?
And I tell them I’m not going to Uzbekistan. That I just wanted to get close to the border and start walking East from there. I’m not trying to meet anyone. I’m here to hike and be in nature. Somehow they got an idea that I wanted to “go to Uzbekistan and meet a man”.
I tell them I do not want to go to Uzbekistan, and there is no one I need to meet.
Then they asked me “why did you run?”
So I say “I did not run”.
And they asked me “why did you hide?”
And I tell them “I did not hide. I was just walking”.
Over and over they ask me the same questions for hours and hours and make me write a statement explaining everything that happened and have the translator translate everything into Russian.
July 5th, 3:00 am
We leave the office and go to the police station and I tell them “look there’s no reason for me to sleep at the police station do you have any other option?”
I stand there while several men are talking. Eventually they tell me to get in the car, and I walk with the official I understand is the senior figure in Chatkal Valley. He takes me to his home and shows me a room where I can sleep, and tells me we need to get up at 7:00.
So I got a couple hours of sleep and I got into the car and we go back to the police station. I’m taken to a room upstairs and sit in front of the police captain. We wait for the translator to come. While waiting, I asked if I could eat something from my pack. He agreed, so I sliced some cheese and bread from my pack and ate my first meal since lunch the day before.
When the translator comes it’s like someone pressed rewind… The same questions over and over and over.
Finally I start understanding what’s going on. I understand that the guide that I met when I first arrived on trail was not my guide [See previous post] and I mistakenly thought the guy on the horse was the guide I had paid for. He was just a reservation worker who for some reason decided to lead me, as if he was my guide for the entire day. The other problem was that the permits I got from the office before heading on trail were not the right permits.
For four hours I sat in the room while the official, the police captain and the translator asked me the same questions I already answered over and over. I finally turned to the translator and told her: “hey you already know the answers, right? Can you just tell them what I’m going to tell you and save all of us some time?”.
And she, being frustrated herself, understanding this whole situation is a waste of time just laughed with me and continued on.
I think we all knew this was about to be over at some point but the same questions kept coming, the same answers replied and the day went on.
July 5th, 17:00
By the end of “the investigation” the official, the police captain, the translator and I all went and had lunch at a local restaurant after which I called my friend Osman who came and picked me up. He took me to his home where I had a very, very long night’s sleep.
