We ♥ Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan!

Let me begin by apologising for the late blog update!  We have been on a bushcamping extravaganza which was much fun, but obviously left us without internet access; a great relief for some people, a great pain for others!

With no internet, Warren & Dave have resorted to more hirsute methods of entertainment

Entering Kazakhstan from Uzbekistan was an immense test of patience for everyone, crew, guide and expedition members. Our longest border crossing yet, it took nine hours for Calypso to wait her turn in the queue. Luckily for the rest of us we had a small café to sit in and drink pots of Chai and plates of Plov (Uzbek fried rice).

Jo, James & Warren at the border commandeer an empty bus to get a seat at the border crossing

Campsite visitor

The next day we hit the road hard and made it to the lush and stunning area of Aksu-Jabagly Nature Reserve.  Our bushcamp is in the grounds of the rangers station, and as Calypso leaves the tarmac to go off-road the ranger meets us atop his horse like the hero in a Western to lead us the way to what is essentially his back garden.  And what a garden he has!  Surrounded by hills, streams and long lush grass for his cows to graze, we are not allowed to start a fire, but that is a small sacrifice.

Jim breakdancing on the roof of Calypso

Campsite view

4 o'clock beer o'clock on the truck

Our next bush camp is near to the Aksu Canyon, it’s a great place to camp as it is near to the canyon for hiking, some people trekked on horse back up the valley and met us at the camp site later.  It is also a good for bird watching in the evening with our guide, Svetlana. You may have read about Svetlana in the Lonely Planet, she is a delightful lady with tonnes of knowledge about Kazakhstan traditions, flora and fauna.

Al, Julie, Jim, Waz & Dav trekking

Andy horse trekking

Calypso

Dav enjoying the roof seats with Fi

The trekkers

Lou and her horse

  

Kelly

On our way out from the Aksu canyon region we stop at Iirsu village.  A small village of 30 families, around 150 people, this self-sufficient community survives on a diet of fatty meat and wheat and makes ends meet through selling  small hard balls of cheese, bread and cattle at the nearest market.  They are completely cut off from other villages during winter when the road becomes covered in snow and impassable.  They milk goats for their babies, cows for making cheese and horses for making Kumys, an alcoholic beverage made from fermented mares milk.  Svetlanas description of this local drink is beer mixed with sour cream, yummy!  In order to make enough of this drink to satisfy the demand the mares are milked every two hours, even during the night, for 6 months.  We are invited inside the local shop where they sell basic supplies of beer, cigarettes and lolly pops.  It’s a great way of seeing the simple way of life in rural Kazakhstan.

Mahala and a local Kazakh girl

Mahala tries a cheese ball

Making cheese

We leave Svetlana in her hometown village and head out for our final Kazakh bushcamp near Merke where we stock up on supplies and prepare for our border crossing into Kyrgyzstan.

Andy on fire crew, with Kelly giving a helping hand

Mary & James at the fire

Mary baked us all a cake!

Mary cutting the cake

Now THAT's a campfire!

We are all looking forward to Kyrgy, and the border crossing is incredibly simple and quick.  We meet our new guide Anton, a young lad who is passionate about his country. Within a couple of days he is just as passionate about Pernille.

Pernille, breaking hearts all over Central Asia

We spend our first night in Asia Mountains hotel in Bishkek. There is a swimming pool and shortly after arriving this is where everyone spends the afternoon chilling out and cooling off before a group meal at German restaurant, Steinbrau.  A strange choice of restaurant you may be thinking for our first night in Kyrgystan, but it is a five minute walk from our hotel and they have ice cold beers on tap!

Chilling by the pool

Fi, Jo, Becs, Yvonne, Mahala, Julie, Louise

If you see washing hung by your pool, overlanders must be in town!

We head out of Bishkek and on to a rafting camp, an Odyssey first. The majority of the group are up for this action, adventure activity while a couple of us stay back and set up camp and begin cooking up a feast for the hungry team when they return.

Rafters ready to do battle

Julie

Alex & Fi getting ready for war... or rafting?

Thumbs up for rafting from Phil

On the river

Lake Issyk Kol, the second largest alpine lake in the world is our next destination.  We pitch up on the calm southern shores just in time for lunch and a quick swim…well, Phil does, who takes every opportunity to get in to his speedos and take a dip.

Issyk Kul panorama

Spike

A lovely lunch spot

Hang on... is that Phil in the background?

Before we reach our next destination we stop in Bokonbayevo where we watch a magnificent display of Eagle Hunting. Everyone gets a turn holding Tamara the Eagle on his or her arm before we watch this graceful animal swoop from the air and rip out the heart of a rabbit.  A bit too gory for some people, but it’s nature in action and the relationship between man and his eagle is incredibly touching.  He will keep the bird till she is 10 years old and then set her free.

The eagle hunter and Tamara, his eagle

Julie

Phil

Yvonne

Onwards to my favourite bushcamp spot! Jeti-Oghuz, meaning "Seven Bulls" in the local Kyrgyz language, a red sandstone cliff is the wall or boundary of the village of the same name.  Getting to the best camping spot at Jeti-Oghuz is always exciting.  This is where Calypso must cross five wooden bridges to reach the valley that opens up from the gorge.  Everyone has to jump off the truck and walk across the bridges while crew navigate Calypso safely across.  After successfully crossing all five bridges, the weather turns.  Rain and hail turn the track wet and muddy but we make it to a great spot sheltered by trees and near the river.  It’s a great night for opting to stay in the nearby Yurt camp, but the unlucky 5 that were left with the leaking yurt, Louise, Pernille, Alex, Fiona and Becs, join crew around the Odyssey camp for a evening meal of beans and cheese on toast. 

The Seven Bulls

Calypso crossing the bridges

Walking across

Becs, Julie & Phil chilling by the river

Andy, Julie, Phil, Jo & Spike in a yurt

Dave & a yurt

Jo enjoying some Plov in a yurt

Julie & Lou getting cosy in the yurt

Mary enjoying yurt comforts

Pernille enjoying yurt blankets

Two thirsty travellers having wine in a yurt

It has become an Odyssey tradition to buy a sheep from nomads for a spit roast dinner whilst up at Jiety, so Anton and myself head off to find our sheep.  It takes a great deal of to-ing and fro-ing between our camp and the nomad camp to arrange this sheep, and then even more negotiation on when we want the sheep to be slaughtered, skinned and gutted ready for our spit that we construct out of sand mats.  This is all made even harder when the owner of the sheep turns up to camp drunk from vodka and is incoherent to our translator, Anton.

The arrival of the sheep puts a slight dampener on the fancy dress party we have started and must have confused and bewildered our nomad guests.  Even so the sheep is tied to the back of the truck where it can spend the night chilling out ready for the big day tomorrow.  Yvonne does a cracking job of taking requests and being DJ for the evening, and everyone dances round the camp fire singing along to the tunes.

Fancy dress

Becs

Creepy Hayden with two belly dancers - Kelly & Pernille

Creepy Hayden

Jo

Julie

Kelly & Pernille

Mary & Anna - Kim & Aggie

Lou & Dav

Mahala & Teresa

Phil & Britney - oh no wait, it's Al

Spike

Andy, the invisible man

Yvonne - bubble queen & DJ

Sheep day; people have woken up early to watch the skilled nomad, skin and gut our evening meal.  Waren, a vegetarian since five, is finding the whole process fascinating and takes many photos.  There are a few from the group who have decided to stay away from camp on this day and turn vegetarian.

Anna, Fi, Mahala, Jim & Al

Adventurous hiking

Dave

Fi

Jim & his horse guide

Jim, Al, Dav

Jim

Jo

Jo, Fi, Mahala & Becs

Mahala, Becs & Jim

Waterfall at Jety Ogus

It takes a lot of hard work to cook a whole sheep on a spit, checking the progress of the meat, adding wood to the fire for even cooking, preparing the vegetables and the sticky toffee dessert after.  It is a lot of effort, but it is worth it.  The lamb was juicy, tender and delicious.  Some even commented that it was the best lamb they had ever tasted! Better still there is enough meat left over to make a lamb stew for our next bushcamp evening meal!

Preparing the sheep

Sand mats aren't just for mud!

Pancakes for breakfast on sheep day

Simon tending to his sheep

The vultures - Becs, Jim, Warren & Spike

It is celebration time as it is Phils Birthday and we head out of Jeti-Oghuz to our first homestay in Kyrgystan. We are spread out over three different houses and as the afternoon turns to evening it’s starts to snow.  We are told that this is most unusual for the time of year and everyone starts to get twitchy about our next bushcamp at Lake Song Kol our first venture up to high altitude.  For now, we enjoy a feast, birthday bubbly and cake for Phil in the darkness of a power cut caused by the snowy weather, good job we all have head torches!

Phil's birthday dinner

Alex makes himself at home at the home stay

Pernille's birthday is the day after Phil's and as we stop off at a local felt making co-operative nearby the lady gives her the small felt carpet that we make after watching her demonstration.  It’s a great opportunity for everyone to purchase felt hats, blankets, and decorations.

Julie & Andy making felt

Anna beating the wool to make felt

Becs, Anna, Mary & Lou with their felt creation

Bruce & Dav dancing on felt

Dav stomping and shimmying on the roll of felt

Hayden & Al in wolfskin coats

Kelly & Hayden later enjoying their felt blanket

Pernille with her birthday gift

The boys with their traditional Kyrgyz felt hats

Warren in a wolfskin coat

Yvonne in a sheepskin coat

The drive up to Song Kol is a dramatic one, unusually for this time of year, snow blankets the surrounding hills while marmots, yaks, sheep and goats dash away from the noisy truck as we pass.  When we reach the top of the mountain pass we get our first sighting of the lake, so we all jump out for a photo stop before continuing on to set up camp.

Andy & Julie in the snow

Becs & Mary with their snowman

Phil with his flip flops in the snow

Snowball fight!

Warren penguin dancing to keep warm

Yaks in the snow

And more

Our campsite in the snow

Our campsite is dusted with snow when we arrive, but slowly over the next day it disappears.  It was quite extraordinary watching the surrounding scenery change from crisp white to earthy greens.

There are many nomads in this area with their animals out to pasture which is great for us as we get to stay in yurts again!  It’s a wonderful experience as we get treated to warm hospitality and cosy sleeping.  As well as hiking, water/snow collection we manage to see a game of Kok Boro (the game does seem to have quite a few names!), or as we like to call it, goat polo.  Four horsemen grapple and wrestle over the body of a headless, hooveless goat attempting to score goals by dropping the carcass on a blanket laid out in the middle of the field.  It’s a fantastic way of seeing the horsemanship of these nomads and also an opportunity for some of the gang to have a go. 

That's better!

Andy & Simon take on the nomads

Andy

Bruce casually carrying the goat corpse

Hello!

It's mine!

Struggles on horseback

Jim getting into the goat polo

Players taking a vodka break

Simon and one of the nomads wrestle over the goat

Spectators

A safer place to be spectators!

Boys and beers

Calypso and a rainbow

Flying the kite camera at Song Kul

Jo, Becs, Alex & Dav go for a hike

Kelly sunbathing at Song Kul

Mahala & friends

Mares milk, guitars & good time

Andy  Julie

Simon, Jules & Bec

Teresa & Warren

The road Calypso won't get down!

The weather is moving in - Anna, Teresa & Mary

The young nomads took a liking to our camp chairs!

For the evening we have Yvonne’s pub quiz to entertain us.  the teams are the cook groups and the prize is bottle of wine, which is gold dust with the bar stock running low. Dav, Andy, Anna, with stand-in team mates Anton and myself, are the winning team.

On our way to Naryn we pull off the road to a spot near to a river where will camp for the night.  It was charming spot next to river although it slowly rose over the course of the evening, which became a cause for concern for those who pitched their tents right next to it.  Having to consume all our fresh stock before our next border crossing gave us a great excuse to start tucking in to marshmallows, hot whiskey drinks we now call “Irish Nomad” and a new cocktail creation from our bar crew “dirty yurty”.

Andy & Jim

Marshmallows

Spike collecting marshmallow sticks

Our homestay in Naryn provides us with more delicious local food.  After dinner the group are briefed about what to expect from our next sector in China and what to expect from the border crossing, follwed by Anton's own Kyrgystan quiz. 

Kazakhstan and Kyrgystan treated us well.  It has been an incredible time where we have experienced all types of weather, had our first foray into high altitude, bad roads, good roads, stuck in the mud, horses, sheep, yaks, marmots, lakes, rivers, nomads, so much in a short space of time. 

Who knows what China will bring?  Let's wait and see… it is after all part of the adventure!