Hitchhiking in an anbulance, sleeping in a mosque and meet Mara!

I left Osh and went to Usbekistan, crossed the country in about 8 hours and crossed another Border to Tajikistan to meet up with Mara in the capital Dushanbe. But the capital is far away from the border and I didn't get up as early as I wanted so I knew I wouldn't make it on the same day. 

First things to do when crossing a border is (for me at least) getting the local currency and a sim card. On a Sunday the ATMs are sometimes empty and aren't refilled until Monday so I went already on the Saturday. Well turns at the town close to the border the ATMs were already empty on the Saturday. I was able to pay the taxi driver in Uzbeki currency and he had pitty with me so we tried plenty of ATMs but all were empty. Eventually he brought me to a friend who would exchange 50€ I had left to Tajik soms. At this point it was already past 6 in the evening and I wasn't able to get a sim card anymore. I found a restaurant with WiFi and got food I really needed. Then I also figured out that there were no hostels at all in this town but only expensive hotels. Honestly I was really frustrated at that point, especially because Max told me I would be able to exchange currency at the border and would be able to get a sim card there. I also could have gotten the currency in Usbekistan but decided against that since I thought I'd get some at the border... Anyway, my mood was on a low and my money as well. I couldn't afford 2 nights in these hotels with the 50€ I had. The sun was about to set and I decided I would keep on hitchhiking, hoping to get invited to sleep somewhere. If not I still had the hammock. As long as I escaped the city I could sleep in there.

And turns out, my plan worked. I got picked up within 10 minutes and had a nice, rudimentary chat with someone with a very difficult name. I remember it as "Dracha" but that's definitely wrong. Anyway Dracha told me he had to work a little bit and then he would go home and has a place to sleep there. I wholeheartedly agreed.

Turns out, "some" work ment driving huge bags with fertilizer around - from 21 to 1 o clock in the night in an opel astra.

These are the bags. Its ammonium nitrate, the same stuff that exploded in Beirut. But he didn't smoke and knew what he was doing. It's been a long day and I was really happy to finally get to his place!

This is where I slept that night, it was really cozy. 

He had a huge house and only 3 kids but there were more around. The picture above only displays half of them. They really liked taking pictures with me and used all sorts of funny filters.

I continued hitchhiking and eventually went with a shared taxi the last bit of the road. When I arrived in Dushanbe I immediately bought a sim card and also found some ATMs that had money. Then I made my way into the hostel and finally "really" arrived. It felt good.

Tajik people tend to glue money together. These are 5x0.2 coins to make a 1 som coin (1 som coins also exist but you usually don't need the smaller ones). 1 som is about 8 cent.

I did nothing during that day, I really needed a break and noticed that I started to get herpes - as always when I'm really stressed out.

Fast message:

We are hitchhiking in the Pamir mountains, there wont be internet for the next days. Will give u a big update once im out.