After stocking up on fresh bread and raspberries from the market we bargained with a some taxi drivers for a lift to the town of Kurtka where we would meet out guide and horses. The fare was reasonable, but the cranky old driver made it clear there would be no more photo stops after the gaudy mosque (below), and at Kurtka he dropped us in the middle of town instead of helping us find our guide.
A gaudy mosque
At Kurtka the horses were loaded up for the nine hour journey that started on grassy plains then headed up a pleasant, pine tree covered valley that really did look like Switzerland. Only stallions are used for riding in Kyrgyzstan; this is because the mares are used for milking. So most of the the horses were quite feisty. Luisa's horse was a 2km racing horse that could not be slowed down - after a while this became tiring so she swapped with Roger and got a slow rickety horse that needed whipping to move at all, and would try to roll onto its back during river crossings. At lunch, we noticed that one of our hard boiled eggs was part way to becoming a chicken!
Grassy plains
Roger reins in the racehorse
From the valley we turned of to a steep, rocky pass. It took hours, but eventually in the late afternoon we passed the tree line and crossed the pass to a gently sloping alpine valley with views of Lake Song Kul.
Tobias at the beginning of the pass
Rocky section
Hey Roger, what's on the other side?
Grassy hills - a relief after all the rocks
Tobias and Roger heading down to Lake Song Kul
Late afternoon horse shadow
Sunset
We reached the yurt as the sun was setting, at around 8.30pm, in time for a dinner of mutton noodles at our host family's yurt. Kyrgyz tend to stay up late and sleep in, even when they are in the jailoo, much to the frustration of many travellers.
Our guides, packhorse and dog
In the morning we watched milk being separated and tried some kurut, dried sour curds. We rode for a few hours to the lakeside on a wide grassy plain with a spectacular backdrop. Rachael and Tobias decided to do some more riding while we headed clockwise around the lake on foot.
Separating the milk
Kurut
There are evenly spaced yurts around the perimeter of the lake surrounded by grazing sheep, cattle and horses. Every yurt seems to have a pair of binoculars, essential for spotting visitors as they approach for afar. The dogs would bark, kids would rush out to stare, and sometimes we were invited in for chai (tea) and kymys. One girl approached us with a crowd of siblings eager to practice her English. As it started to hail we accepted a yurt invitation for afternoon tea where we were fed chai, kymys and fried, salted lake fish and we shared the halva we were carrying.
Practising English and Kyrgyz
Boys and their dog
Afternoon tea stop
That afternoon took us through a tricky swampy section without any yurts or fresh water, so we kept walking until we spotted some yurts on the southwestern corner of the lake just below the pass out to Kyzart that we would take. It was difficult to judge distances in the expanse of grassy plains - we guessed two hours walk away and that was fairly accurate. There we found a good spot for the tent with views of the lake and snow capped mountains, a clear stream and some locals drinking vodka outside the designated Community Based Tourism (CBT) yurt where we could have dinner. The only downside, as Roger discovered, was the risk of being trampled by a wayward cow if you took a nap out in the open. Because there is no firewood, children collect dung which is dried and compressed for burning. At night they showed us how they put their chickens to bed in a hole dug into the side of the embankment and covered with a plank of wood. We heard stories of wolves that would come at night and occasionally kill a horse!
View from our campsite
Campsite at dusk
The next morning we borrowed some horses and explored the northwestern shore of the lake, an area of rocky headlands and calm bays, some with beaches. We took the narrow lakeside horse track, and at one point came across a herd of sheep blocking our way that wouldn't budge.
Horse cam
Serene...
Out of the way, sheep!
That night we were joined at the yurt by Rachael and Tobias, Tony, a New Zealander who had been travelling for two years, and another Swiss couple who arrived by horseback. The local kids wanted a game of soccer, made trickier by the need to avoid the pats of fresh cow dung. At 3000m, everyone except the kids was struggling for breath after about 15 minutes.
Soccer
The next day our plan was to walk from the lake to the town of Kyzart, over a relatively straightforward, but steep, pass that would have been around 3500m high. On the way we were surprised to find another yurt settlement upstream to ours, complete with a little girl peeing into the stream. The pass itself was grassy but with some patches of snow still. Someone told us it would take three hours but it ended up taking six (perhaps our Kyrgyz language needs more work), with a long descent into Kyzart and a river crossing at the end.
Heading up towards the pass
Getting closer - the view down to Kyzart
A woodpecker!
Tombs on the outskirts of Kyzart
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