Lakers

From: Osh, Kyrgyzstan

It's been almost a week since my last post, so I'm going to do this in chunks. The next couple of posts are going to be full of positives -- Kyrgyzstan has completely charmed me...

Getting down to Kyrgyzstan took a while but was a lot of fun. Because my hotel kicked me out early (who enforces a 10 am checkout?) I found myself stranded at the bus station for six hours before my bus left. Sounds boring, right? Not in Almaty, where bus stations come fully equipped with everything a traveler needs: internet cafes, snack stands, competing toilet facilities, and the world's creepiest billiard parlor:



In the morning we arrived in Cholpon-Ata, a summer resort village on the north shore of Lake Issyk-Kol. Issyk-Kol is the second-largest alpine lake in the world, and is known as the "Pearl of Central Asia." I'll reserve my judgment until later this summer, but I agree that it was a stunning sight.

North of the village is a field of glacial boulders with petroglyphs from the Scythian civilization (around 6th century BC, I think). Supposedly the field is literally covered with them; there are hundreds of burial-stone arrangements, etchings, and things like that. I hiked there in the afternoon, which took longer than expected since I had to avoid the numerous mangy, barky dogs hanging out around the farmhouses. In the end, I could only find two etchings and one pile of burial stones before I got bored and gave up. So much for archaeology:



The next day, I went to Karakol, a picturesque town of decomposing grand Russian homes at the eastern end of the lake. At my hostel, I bumped into the owner, Valentin, who recommended that I leave the hostel and go with him to his camp at Altyn-Arashan, a hot-spring camp in a nearby mountain valley. "Much more fun than this boring town," he pointed out. "Plus, hostel is out of water." I decided to join him, mostly because of how hilarious rugged he was: older, sort of grizzled-looking, a chain-smoker, dressed in beat-up trekking gear. Even that description doesn't really do him justice. Before we left, he finished loading up this hilarious four-wheeler:



Even the four-wheeler ("the quad") was pretty rugged; Valentin salvaged it from the scrap heap at the nearby Canadian-Kyrgyz gold mining operation and revived it with second-hand parts. Amazingly, the thing didn't brake down once on our ascent to the hot springs, a two-hour white-knuckle ride over narrow mountain paths strewn with boulders and through little mountain streams.

Altyn-Arashan lived up to the praise. The springs are at the bottom of a stunning and remote valley in the Tian Shan mountains. There are a few small lodges settled along the valley floor, but apart from that, it's just good old Kyrgyz wilderness. Valentin's lodge was rugged (as expected) but warm and charming.





I got to the lodge too late as it was getting dark -- too late to do any serious hiking. Still, the evening was a lot of fun. I tinkered around with a sour-sounding Soviet guitar, started a few games of chess with the Russians, drank some honey beer (way better than mead, which is bland) and had some hearty plov (filling Central Asian ricey meal). There were a bunch of other foreigners so we had a good post-dinner chat around the fire.

Before bed, our host took me down to the hot springs, run by a neighboring Russian family. He explained the process: you go into the hut, strip down, ease into the water (which is scorching) and then get out after 15 minutes. I was scrambling to find some excuse not to have to take a an intimate nude bath with Valentin, but there were enough bath-huts so we each got our own. Disaster avoided.

I rode back to town the next morning with some Swedes staying at the lodge. Method of transport: Soviet jeep, age 27. Quite a sight: all the gears and wiring were exposed and the car had to be shut off every 20 minutes. "Niet radiator," the driver explained, which is fair enough for a pre-perestroika clunker.

More later... can't upload photos right now but will get to that soon.

PS. A bunch of tough-looking Kyrgyz guys are huddled around the computer next to me, listening to Whitney Houston’s “I will always love you” song from the Bodyguard. On repeat.