Review of Expedition Uzbekistan with guide Lucia:
Looking for an equestrian, perfectly balanced active holiday? You do not want to get lazy in Croatia again? Stop scrolling and send Lucy an application for Uzbekistan, because you won’t find a better equine adventure anywhere else. Now that I have your attention, I’ll tell you what you’ll experience there.
First, you’ll take a long flight. So long your ass is gonna be ultra sore. That’s okay, ’cause it’s the last time it will be sore. The Uzbek saddle seats don’t hurt your ass, not even a little bit. That’s quite surprising considering the fact that it’s more like scaffolding tubes covered in something your great-grandmother used to sew than a saddle. But those tubes hold you up well in the mountains and attach nicely to riding bags. So you don’t have to worry about weeks of riding with a sore butt.
You come to a country where it’s hot all year round. It won’t bother you, because the next day you’ll start climbing the mountains, where it’s already quite pleasant. If Lucy takes you at the same time as me (September), you’ll spend most of the ride in a T-shirt or a sweatshirt. “But how can you call it an adventure when I don’t even get the chance to suffer from the cold and frost?” I hear you exclaim. Of course, you’ll get that opportunity too, but only after dark and early in the morning. That won’t bother you either, because by then the horses will be mostly unsaddled and you’ll be by the fire with tea and a good, warm meal cooked for you by the handy horse boys. So you’ll experience the cold and the heat, but no climatic blast to spoil your trip.
Although Lucy promises that you will be able to help the horse boys often, she lies. Most of the time, they don’t need your help at all. By the time you open your eyes in the morning, half the horses will probably be saddled and tea will be ready. If not, yes, you can take the saddle to the horse and pick mint and rosehips, but that’s all they’ll ask of you. So you have plenty of time to do the essentials, like packing up your tent and getting ready to go. So you won’t be stressed from doing something wrong. Or being asked to do something you can’t do, you don’t have to worry about that either.
You’ll be riding very smart horses the whole time. Some of them may look like they’re about to die, but it’s just a trick to fool you. They’ll be tirelessly trotting at a sure-footed pace for dozens of miles over mountains nearly 3,000 meters high, and they’ll love to gallop. They are all loyal, reliable and well-read, even though they are all stallions. The ones that weren’t are already eaten. So feel free to take pictures, camera and enjoy the beautiful mountains and views. It’s a special landscape. It may look the same at first glance, but in real life you’ll enjoy the top of every hill and curve, because climbing it will reward you with some cool panoramas that will make your chin drop. Sometimes you’ll go high up, sometimes you’ll go down in the valley, but every day you’ll be in the beautiful countryside with nice people. In the mountains you won’t meet many locals, in the lowlands you will, but you’ll mostly speak broken Czech and Russian, taken from John Wick. Lucy will translate everything else for you. So you won’t starve, even if you don’t have her with you and you’re hiking solo in another part of Uzbekistan.
All in all, you’re in for a beautiful active horse riding tour, adventurous but not physically demanding in a beautiful country with a rich Silk Road history, where it’s surprisingly easy to get along and ultra good and cheap to eat. So don’t hesitate, book and maybe we’ll meet up.
Marek
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Thanks to photographer Lucie Buzkova for the photos. <3
