Kyrgyzstan - Karakol and Jyrgalan

We left Cholpon-Ata, still pumped from seeing the World Nomad Games. As we drove out of town, we passed enormous queues of people waiting to catch busses up and down the valley to one of the games locations.

We drove through towns with 'gingerbread houses' typical of this area.

Horses seemed to get trucked everywhere.

We drove to one of Kyrgyzstan's main cities, Karakol. It felt much more like a small town than I expected. It was a strange place. Only the main roads were sealed. There seemed to be one main stretch of shops and the rest was just dusty, wide streets leading through suburban areas.

We stayed in a great guest house with an amazing owner. Sadly, my computer died. The guest house owner had an IT friend who spent 4.5 hours working on it, to no avail. It looks like my hard drive has died. I won't know how much, if anything, is recoverable until I get home. All my photos are now being processed on John's laptop, which has none of my programmes, and the photos are doing weird things, so I apologise now for the poor quality pics.

We found a wonderful restaurant in Karakol that served fabulous fresh food of many varieties. We ate there at every opportunity.

On our first day we walked to the Maiden's Tears Waterfall. The waterfall was quite lovely, but it wasn't a great hike. A lot of people and horses were there. It had been raining in the previous days, and the horses had turned the tracks to mud. They were also wrecking the tracks. Scars ran along the hillsides. Water will flow down these and cause further erosion when it rains. I think it's time for some intervention.

There were some lovely views along the way though.

The waterfall.

On the way back out we passed the 'Seven Bulls' rocks. I had read how they can be really beautiful but, on a cloudy day, near a ramshackle village, they weren't that striking!

The next day was wonderful though. There is a ski field in the Karakol valley, to the south of Karakol, and sometimes the chairlift runs in summer. We waited an hour until there were enough people for them to start it! Horses wandered around eating the grassy areas of the ski runs.

It's not often that you glide over horses on a chairlift!

We had a lovely 30-minute ride to the top. On the way up we were so close to the trees that we brushed past them. At one stage a squirrel popped out to say hello!

The views on the way up were amazing.

The views from the top were simply stupendous on this perfect, cloud-free day. 

At 3040 metres high, we certainly felt on top of the world.

The crows here seem to be better flyers than most and they soared on thermals.

We then drove further up the valley, parked at a certain point and just walked up the valley. It was really beautiful and peaceful.

Back in Karakol, we visited the Holy Trinity Church. It was built entirely of wood and was lovely.

The wood carvings were beautiful.

We said goodbye to our lovely host and headed to Jyrgalan, further east. It quickly became obvious that major roadworks were being undertaken. We detoured, we avoided potholes and we ploughed through clouds of dust. The number of trucks and road-making machinery on the road was astonishing!

At one stage an excavator just raised his arm and we drove under it!

We passed mob after mob of horses, cows and sheep, all going the same way. We guessed that they're starting to bring stock down from the higher country at the end of summer.

2.5 hours of bone-rattling, dust-breathing driving later, we arrived at Jyrgalan. It was only 66km from Karakol!

We went to Jyrgalan as it's known to be a lovely, rural village and a great base for hiking. Locals won a US grant to start up a coordinated guest house business, where trekkers are drawn in and profits get shared within the village. We were looking forward to a rural experience. Much to our horror though, this is what greeted us.

Apparently, the Kyrygz government has decided to build a ski resort near Jyrgalan. New roads were being built all the way from Bishkek to here. Hundreds of trucks drove up and down the half-made roads, throwing dust over everything and everyone. The sound of machinery was constantly in the background.  

Part of the river had been destroyed by earthworks.

The main road had been widened and large trucks trundled up and down it. This wasn't what we came here for!

We checked into our guest house and found we were staying in half of a large yurt-like accommodation, which was kind of cool. There are thousands of yurt-shaped rooms built around this country. They look like yurts but are usually made of wood or something a bit more permanent. Next to us were an American couple around our age. We immediately connected and we had a great time with them.

It was only early afternoon when we arrived, so John and I went on our first walk. We soon met some Bangladeshi truck drivers. Somehow, one of them told us within two minutes of meeting him, that he earned USD1000 per month. This is probably a big salary for these guys. They were very cheerful and friendly. They were clearly enjoying their time there.

Soon after that we came across a water truck upside down in the river! The driver must have backed up to get water then the truck somehow tipped. Hope he was ok!

While we were walking, they pulled the truck out. It was pretty beaten up.

The hiking track we were supposed to be walking on was now a dirt road frequented by trucks.

Our destination was Tulpar Tash, a rock with legends told about it. 

The view down the valley was lovely.

The next day's hike was a weird one. We followed a trail on one of our apps and it didn't make a lot of sense as it turned off an ascent just before we reached the top and contoured around the big hill on poor tracks instead. The views on the first part were superb though!

Lunch stop with a view.

We descended to a lake which was ok.

A Vietnamese girl latched onto us because she was afraid of the cows grazing on the plains. She was travelling on her own in Kyrgyzstan, and it was the cows she was worried about? Not that there's any particular danger in Kyrgyzstan, but still.

As we approached the village, we were thrown back into the world of roadworks again.

Trucks aside, the village was interesting. There was a classic bridge which hikers still used.

Old wooden sheds still lined the streets.

This abandoned house had trees growing from the roof!

You don't see many pretty gardens in this country, but this one was cute. All the outside dunnies are this shape. They're gorgeous!

We had booked three nights here. We soon realised this was about three nights too long! We ended up forfeiting our last night and leaving early. Luckily, our room was comfortable (despite only having single beds) and the Americans were good company. We certainly still enjoyed ourselves!

Hooroo!
Heather and John