The morning rain didn’t scare us — we bought raincoats at a souvenir shop near the Registan and set off.
The taxi took us to this point And from there a circular route begins that takes about 3 hours. You can follow this track — GPS works perfectly there, but there’s no internet, so you need to download the track in advance.
The hike is not difficult — most of the time it’s just a dirt road, there’s one spot where you need to cross a stream over stones, and one steep climb.
The weather changes quickly there — at one point at the top we got covered by fog, but it cleared quickly, and toward the end it started raining.
To get back, you can take a minibus from the village — number 256 goes to the second ring road for 6,000 som, and from there you can order a Yandex taxi. Near the final stop there’s also very tasty fresh samsa from a tandoor.
The Agalyk Mountains are simply amazing. We were there the other day and never regreted that.
How did you get there? Did it take long to get from Samarkand?
By taxi — 40 minutes there, 40 minutes back. We got lucky with the return taxi — there’s no signal there, but we had a plan B 🤣, we arranged with the driver who took us there that we’d call him an hour before to pick us up. But there was no connection, we could have walked a bit to a café and called from there, but we got lucky — a taxi happened to pass by.
The best locations with stunning natural scenery near Samarkand:
Very atmospheric and beautiful places
From the city center to Yukary Agalyk is 25 km — you can get there by taxi. And from there, it’s uphill! There is one minibus that goes there, but it stops about three kilometers short — taxis are inexpensive. From there you’ll have to walk back to the minibus — there’s usually no mobile connection signal there. Or arrange with the taxi driver who takes you — so that he comes back for you at a set time.