Route description:

Duration: 2 days, 1 night
The travel time to arrival at the camp (the Parking lot) on the coast: 8 hours
Total travel distance: 900 km.
Transportation: off road with an experienced driver
Equipment: tents, sleeping bags, kitchen utensils, etc.
Meals: 4 meals a day during the route
Recommendations for clothing: protected or sports shoes for Hiking, pants, hat, warm jacket. In the autumn and early spring season need warm clothes, insulated jacket.

Route program:

The first day
Departure from Nukus at 8:00 am on the route Nukus – khodzheyli (mizdakhkan complex, Gyaur Kala fortress) – Kungrad – Ustyurt Plateau – Sudochie lake – camp on the Aral sea.
Day two
The sunrise on the sea Breakfast and departure to the city of Muynak along the escarpment of the Ustyurt Plateau, Canyons, descend and drive along the former bottom of the sea to the village Uchsay and the city of Muynak. Sightseeing tour in Muynak: the ship graveyard and a Museum. Return to Nukus.
This route was developed taking into account many wishes and is optimal, however, we are always ready to take into account the views of our guests and make changes to the tour program.
Changes to the route may include a visit to the Barsa-Kelmes salt Deposit, a trip to the former pier where the Soviet military garrisons were once located, as well as other places. Such trips are beyond the scope of a regular tour and must be agreed in advance.

Detailed description

The departure point is the city of Nukus, the path from which begins in the early morning and runs through the mizdakhkan complex to the city of Kungrad, and then, through the fishing village on lake Sudochie, along the chink and canyons of the Ustyurt Plateau, to the Parking lot on the shore of the Aral sea.
Mizdakhkan complex (4 centuries before.A.D. — 14th century A.D.) represents a special group of archaeological sites and Holy places. Once a huge city, the caravanserai, is now an active cemetery spread over three hills. During the excavations, unique assoir burials, coins, various household utensils, glass, highly artistic gold products are found, which are currently stored in various museums of the world. And to this day pilgrims not only from nearby settlements come here, this place is actively visited by pilgrims from other areas of Karakalpakstan. The main objects of pilgrimage are the mausoleum of Mazlumkhan-Sulu mausoleum of Shamun-Nabi and mound Deposits of Kassab. Many legends are connected with this place, as well as with the nearby Gyaur-Kala fortress.
Above the fishing village of Urga at lake Sudochie rises an ancient watchtower – a legacy of the warlike past. Once these places were points of intersection of many ways: trade and military. The village was formed in the seventies of the XIX century, when Alexander II exiled to the Amu Darya three thousand families of troublemakers – Yaitsky (Ural) Cossacks-old believers. The village existed until the 60s of the last century, and today in its place were only the remains and the cemetery.
The rich fauna of the lake is known far beyond Karakalpakstan and is of great interest to both scientists and lovers of hunting and fishing. Many ornithologists believe that this lake is a key link in the long journey of migratory birds. Pink flamingos, pelicans, swans, white herons, as well as countless ducks and geese annually stop in the rich reed thickets of the lake.

Kubla-Ustyurt (until 1990 Komsomolsk-on-Ustyurt), is a once lively village in the middle of the Ustyurt steppes that arose during the construction of the main gas pipeline in 1964, 60 km from the railway station Zhaslyk. In those years, the population of the village was up to 1000 people, and it even operated a small airfield.
Layers of huge ruins of the canyon – the very chronicle of thousands of years of history. The chink (from the Turkic word «Shin» — a cliff, a ledge) was formed as a result of displacement of huge layers of the earth’s crust, which resulted in a depression, where a huge lake – the Aral sea was formed. The plateau occupies a huge space between the Aral and Caspian seas and has a characteristic feature: the chink is a steep hard-to-reach cliff with a height of about 150-500 m. the Total area of Ustyurt is 180 thousand square kilometers, including 110 thousand square kilometers or more than 60% on the territory of Uzbekistan.
To camp – Parking on the coast of the Aral sea, travelers will reach only in the evening and have time to enjoy the sound of the waves and the quiet sunset. Dinner by the fire, under the incredibly clean starry sky will leave an unforgettable impression. Travelers should definitely pay attention to the study of the milky way, as the star scattering in this part of the world is unusually saturated, and the night under the open sky, away from the light noise – a great opportunity for this.

Undoubtedly, travelers will want to capture the dawn: the red sun rises exactly in the East, right from the horizon of the sea. Early Breakfast with hot tea and on the way back. This time the route will take place on the bottom of the former sea, among the bushes and dunes. The majestic canyons will be left behind, and travelers will go to the former port city of Muynak, where they can dine and visit the cemetery of ships and the Museum of the history of Muynak.
The Aral sea until the middle of the Cenozoic era (21 million years ago) was connected to the Caspian sea. The first map of the Aral sea was compiled in 1850 by the Hydrogeographic Department of the Ministry of the Sea. In the middle of the XIX century the sea was furrowed by ships and steamers of the Aral flotilla. In the mid-twentieth century, the Aral sea was the fourth largest lake in the world, occupying about 68 thousand square kilometers, with a depth of 70 m. 34 species of fish lived Here, 20 of which were of commercial importance. In Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan part of Aral sea acted on 5 of the fisheries and one fish-canning combine.
Muynak was once a large and developed city on the Peninsula, whose shores were washed by the Aral sea. It produced up to 60 thousand tons of fish per year and operated fish cannery, which processed at least 5% (!) just catch huge USSR. In 1941, this plant produced 5 million cans of canned food from cattle bred from the territories occupied by the fascist troops, and in the 1960s, up to 22 million cans of canned fish were produced here per year. In 1984, the production of fish in the Aral sea stopped completely, and the plant began to work on imported raw materials. Currently, the plant is no longer working, and the inhabitants of Muynak began to engage in animal husbandry, crop production, hunting and fishing in small lakes.