For our rest day, we’re going to take a dip in the nearby lake created by the dam on the Syr-Daria. Locals call this lake ‘the little sea of Tajikistan’. It’s a huge 55km long and 25km wide. Many of the beaches are privatised and there are a lot of beautiful, wealthy houses being built... At the end of the road, there’s a quiet little spot where you can go for a swim.
With another trip to the Bazaar and then back to the hotel, the walk will cover a good sixty kilometres on our day of ‘rest’ ^^ After seeing a thousand-year-old mulberry tree the day before, this time we’ll see one that’s only 900 years old !

On Sunday morning, we have breakfast on our own at the hotel before setting off early. It’s a fairly quiet 73 km ride along ‘Tajikistan’s little sea’. Along the way we eat blackberries and especially apricots picked from the trees along the way. We’ve already had our fill of apricots when we stop to photograph a family unfurling a large tarpaulin to collect them. The lady beckons us over, we cross the road and several of them fill a bag with apricots for us. In a few moments we have more than two kilos ! I put them in a bag and we set off again, saying goodbye to the family...
When we arrived in Konibodom, the hotel we were looking for seemed to have disappeared and we were sent to one of the worst hotels we’d stayed in so far. It’s only for one night, so it’ll do.