A holiday in Asia, in Uzbekistan and a night in a Yurt, we recommend that you sleep in Ayaz-Kala, for a low-cost trip full of emotions.
If you are planning a trip to Uzbekistan, here is where I recommend you sleep for one or two nights.
The journey by car to get there was pleasant and beautifully landscaped, through the steppe desert and a bright sun. We made only one stop in a, let's say, very indigenous motorway restaurant, where you don't find Icaro or Camogli but you can eat the inevitable Uzbek bread with yogurt, cucumber and tomato salad.
The yurts are the typical dwellings of Central Asian nomads, at the Ayaz-Kala camp you will find about 7/8 of them and each one can accommodate 4 to 6 people, they are built with a wooden skeleton and a felt carpet cover.
The interior is very colorful and you will find only the beds, which serve as chairs during the day, a low table on which to rest food and a stove. The only opening is the entrance door, always facing south. Showers and bathrooms are shared outside. All is very spartan, it's like camping a bit! To welcome you a family who manages the field with an exquisite kindness, always smiling.
We arrived at the camp very early, around three in the afternoon, because we chose not to visit all the forts they proposed to us. I would like to emphasize that with Minzifa Travel you will be very free, you can add or remove visits to sites and monuments according to your needs.
What is there to do at the camp? Anything, a beautiful nothing. The nearest town is about 25 km away, the camp is adjacent to the ancient fort of Ayaz-Kala, you can go there on foot, walking on the fine sand of the desert.
The hours are spent admiring the surrounding desert landscape in disbelief, reading, chatting, sipping tea and vodka while waiting for dinner, the light and colors changed, offering us a spectacle that is difficult to tell.
Consider it was March, so the camp was not fully active due to the temperature. Some tents weren't fully erected and the few tourists we saw were only there to eat in the yurt and leave after a few hours.
We were the only ones to stay overnight, after a delicious dinner with traditional Karapalka and Uzbek dishes: bread, boiled pumpkin and potatoes, dried fruit, salads, sweets and hot tea at will. Expressly ask that the heater be turned on, the warmth will last very little but it will make a difference. At 21 pm we were hidden inside the sleeping bags (bring them), with the cold air blowing on our heads; I suffered a bit from the cold that night but I would do it again a thousand times.
