My Travel Adventures

On the second morning of my two-day layover in Uzbekistan, I rented a car and drove to the mountains. The process was easy: the rental company did not even want to see my international driver’s licence. They did, however, make sure to impress upon me the importance of a twice-stamped document that I was to show the police in case I was pulled over. It seems that stamped documents are an obsessive precaution in this country: when I checked out of my hotel early in the morning on the following day, I was handed another one to show at the airport in case anyone asked for it. No one ever did.

My plane landed in Tashkent at one o’clock in the morning, but fortunately I was not dazed enough to forget to exchange money. A few taxi drivers fought over me in the parking lot, but as a matter of principle I stuck with the first person I approached – the alternative had been a burly man who flung his arm around my shoulder in a manner that would have seemed friendly had it been easier to extricate myself from his embrace. He followed us to the car insisting to my driver that I was to go with him for a higher price, and exchanged some choice words with him – though thankfully no more than that – as I climbed inside.

I arrived in Azerbaijan on the evening of Nowruz. The timing was unintentional; in fact, had I realised my trip was to coincide with the weekend of the New Year, I probably would have arranged things a little differently. My original plan had been to fly to Islamabad via Sharjah on Sunday, but when Iran – in response to the recent US-Israeli offensive – began to launch strikes against its neighbours, my flight was cancelled. I scrambled at the last minute to figure out an alternative route, which eventually yielded the option of flying around the affected zones: From Baku to Tashkent and from Tashkent to Islamabad. Due to the timing of the flights, I ended up having one day to explore Baku and another two days in Tashkent.

On the last day of my long weekend in Spain, I explored Toledo. Since basically every tourist site in the country opens at ten o’clock in the morning, I spent my first hour outside walking the road along the southern edge of the city. While this route does not have too many sights – except, perhaps, for the Old Arab Baths – it offers some pretty views of Toledo that most tourists miss. Since the Alcazar is closed on Mondays, I only visited the gardens at its base and then backtracked to the Museo de Santa Cruz. The museum, which is free of entry, has an impressive collection of art by El Greco, who spent half his life in Toledo and whose tomb can be viewed through a little window in the floor of the Monastery of Saint Dominic of Silos. The upper floor is mostly dedicated to azulejos and temporary exhibitions.

On my second free morning in Madrid, before my friends were up and running, I made a quick tour of the Royal Palace. Since I was not sure when during this extended weekend trip I would visit the palace (if I did visit it at all), I did not buy my tickets online, and they were all sold out by the time I had chosen a date and time. Still, I had read online that I could buy tickets in person if I turned up to the palace and waited in a long queue: I was advised to turn up half an hour before the actual opening time.

I had a free morning in Madrid as my friends wanted to go to the Prado, which I visited last year. Instead of joining them, I made a quick trip to Aranjuez, a town just south Madrid known for its royal palace and gardens – and for inspiring the Concierto de Aranjuez by Joa quín Rodrigo. My journey to the small touristic town was relatively simple: after reaching Villaverde Bajo-Cruce by metro, I boarded bus 423, which had arrived just late enough for me to eat my second chocolate croissant of the day. I had eaten my first upon buying a bag of three at a bakery in Madrid and ate the third once I made it to Aranjuez. Fortunately I still had cash on me, as the bus driver told me his card reader was not working.

I thought I was strangely well rested when I woke up before my alarm, but after a few minutes of lying in bed with my eyes closed, it occurred to me that I forgot to set it. As soon as I saw the time, I darted out of bed. I crammed all my belongings in my backpack and ran out to find a café where I could buy a small pastry to go. Armed with an apple and a slice of banana bread, I then made my way to the Silla de Felipe II, a lookout over the Escorial about thirty to forty minutes from the city centre. That, at any rate, was the time it took me in my frantic state. El Escorial looked small but majestic from the lookout, dwarfed by the mountain on whose slopes the city stands, and snow still capped the even taller mountains on the distant right.