Song Kol

After our little trip in the mountains, it was rime to see the other highlight of Kyrgyzstan: green hills.
So lets go and take a car from Karakol to Kochkor, from there we manage to organise a "tour": 3 days 2 night in the countryside around the Song Kol lake. I m not the biggest fan of tours but it s the only way to experience 3 days horse riding, which is, according to forums, suppoeed to be a great deal.


Lets go so with Debby, a british girl we met in Karakol and our guide Sergei, recommended by a french we met in Karakol also.
The country is slowly managing to develop tourism and as soon as as we started the tour, we could realize the tyrip we re about to make won t be a typical mass tourism tour...

We take our horse, and after a breif introduction of "how horse riding works" we go slowly through the plains and grass hills of this beautifull area. The weather is really nice, Sergei is very friendly. Good trip. All the way, nothing but hills, sometimes shepperds.... and nothing else.
Perfect, I wasn t expecting anything more....


















After a few kilometers and gallop races , it s time for a rest at our first base camp at a local shepperd yurt...

















The second day is pretty much the same, hills, gallop races... but after lunch, the sun suddently leaves us and heavy rain, and even hail, is now falling from the dark clouds...not to mention the thunder lights to scare our little horses.

We arrive at the second base camp all wet and freezed.. but sun is coming back at night just to let us take a few pics of our base camp next to the Song Kol lake.


































The third day is not that exiting, we are taking a car to go back to Kochkor, four hourts ride trought the mountains, the snow, the temperatures drops down to zero....
Once arrived in Kochkor, Arnaud and I are taking a car back to Bishkek, and from there, another car for a night ride down to Osh to cross the border and go to Uzbekistan....where a 35ish degree temperature is waiting for us ....









The Song Kol Team ;-)

Karakol

Time for real travel: Trekking in the mountains behind the Izzyk Kul lake, the biggest lake of Kyrgyzstan.
Arnaud and I are getting ready and I will finally use all the tyrekking equipment I m carrying in my bag since the begining of my trip. We are bying food for 3 days: bred, noodles, soup, fruits, and two little bottles of vodka for the cold nights we are ready to spend.
Lets, go, bags are quite heavy though and the road is nice, but the rain is coming soon and makes the trek a little bit harder. We are spending our first night next to local shepherds camp site, we are freezing with our cold wet feet and light clothings. Seeing us freezing, the shephereds invite us into their little house for hot tea and bread....rahhhh quite nice....in return we offer them a bottle of vodka and share it in the warm "house". Trying to make the conversation but it s quite hard, Arnaud and I are trying to use the ferw words of Russian we learnt since the begining of our trip in Kyrgyzstan.









































The next morning, we are leaving early for a hard day where we have to go through the 3800m high pass to go to the other side of the mountain.
The vegetation is slowly diseapearing to be replaced by rocks only. Weather is getting colder and the rain briefly stops sometimes, but to start again giving us just a hope for our clothes and shoes to dry a little bit.
After a few hours, we can finally see the top of the mountain... but noway to see where is the pass we have to go through. the mountain seems like a big wall to us.
We finally see some foot steps in the snow to lead our way, after a bit, we notice 3 persons climbing through the pass....yeah, we know where to go, finally, even if the pass doesn t seem that easy to be crossed.




















For the last 500 meters, we are walking in the snow, following the foot steps, but our walking shoes and light trousers are wet pretty quick, I don t even have a pair of gloves... what a professional team we are !!!

Here we go...little video ;-)




Once the top reached, we can finally have a rest and "breathe", the weather is not that good and we have to wait a little bit to see the mountains around...worth the climb I have to say...beautifull.






































On the way down, we are really tired and the road is not that easy, at a point I have to throw my bag to be able to go down, then like in a bad dream, I see it rolling and rolling again to slowly disappearing and falling down the mountain, a few second after, the little "bam" sound give me the signal that my bag arrived to its final destination.
Result 30m down, my camera is dead, the bottle of vodka which was on the side pocket has nothing....bad luck hein!!!!

The second night is quite OK our muscles are slowly asking us to stop this....
We finish the 2 nights 3 days trek quite dead but happy to have done it !!!!

Osh>Bishkek

First day in Kyrgyzstan... just arrive in Osh after quite a bus ride on a muddy "road". I don t see that much of the city, which looks like a village and is supposed to be the second bigger town of the country, and I jump straight on a shared taxi to do the 700 to 800 kms that links Osh to the capital Bishkek. I m quite tired and pised about all those tranportations but there are really no points staying in Osh. Plus, my friend Arnaud is waiting for me in Bishkek since a few days already.

The 15h trip is quite beautifull, green hills all the way long with yurts, riding horses nomads, and tons of sheeps and horses walking around in total freedom. Me and the 4 other guys of the car stopped for a quick lunch...and vodka of course.




Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan, looks more like a village to me, little streets, trees and parks all around, the city center is just empty. Time seemed to have stopped since the russians left the place. I spend two full days there walking around the city and try to find interesting places...haven t find them. But still it s quite a place to be seen with the population half Kyrgyz and half Russian. The transition between the muslim Uigur population in western China and the blond Russian/Kyrgyz population here is quite a shock.... I was expecting something a little bit smoother than that.












We are experiencing the local life there and are spending our nights in THE
bar of the town full of 50's americans expats here for construction or gold mining and who are slowly dying in this country where it seems that there nothing to do for them but drinking. Cheking out a club in Bishkek too...quite a night yup !!!

But hey, time to move little bit and go for a little trek...