Khiva - Aral Sea Extended Trip (2 days)

The Aral Sea was one of the world's largest inland salt seas. Today it is reduced to a bare shadow of its recent size through extensive irrigation which has seriously depleted the flow of the Amudarya and the Syrdarya, the two major river systems on which the Aral Sea depends for regeneration. Yet the sea has also gone through a considerable number of changes over many thousands of years through natural causes. The beds of the rivers are constantly shifting and satellite photograph clearly show traces of ancient river beds flowing into different parts of the sea. Sometimes they bypassed the Aral Sea altogether, turning south and west to run into the Caspian Sea. The dry river bed now runs through empty desert but archeological research has found traces of settlements along its banks, showing that it was flowing relatively recently in historical terms (V. N. Yagodin & A. V. G. Betts (2006) Ancient Khorezm, UNESCO).