With the departures of our other traveling companions there are five
of us left in the family and going on to China-John, my British roommate; Enid,
our gal from Yorkshire county, UK; Joe, our last remaining Aussie; and Sheena,
from BC, Canada.
Erkin, our wonderful guide had a family emergency and was replaced by
Anton, a nice Russian lad, and a trainee Makbarrat, a really lovely gal-both in
their early twenties and a bit shy-funny, they being tour guides and
all!
We stopped at an ATM for one last
injection of cash, our final opportunity in Kyrgyzstan, and then headed east
out of Bishkek with the massive Tian Shan mountain range to the south. It was a
beautiful sunny day full of excitement to be starting the next leg of our
adventure.
We traveled back through the
Chong Kemin river valley to the western tip of Lske Ysyk-kol and then south
toward Naryn, our destination today.
Once in the valley we were
surrounded by lush grassy mountains changing to high desert sage and scrub after
the summit. Along the way we stopped for a glass of that wonderful fermented
mare's milk. The taste is smokey and lemony with a tart tang that lasts a while
in your mouth...interesting and unforgetable!
Our guides didn't know the road
well and we side-stepped our lunch stop in Kochkor. I was following the whole
thing on my GPS but got mystified by the landscape and forgot to say something.
The next "town" was a few more miles down the highway-under full construction
(dirt, gravel and slow going). A couple of hours later we found a two horse town
and a cute restaurant full of travelers. Noodles and fried fresh trout filled
our tummies and prepared us for the next three hours of "massage" highway. It
was only 45 miles and took that long.
Naryn is a river town nestled in
a deep gorge below staggering snow covered peaks. Our guest house was in an old
Russian style apartment building. Quite nice actually with a great included
dinner and breakfast. No wifi now for at least two days.
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