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Published: August 2nd 2013
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The first task of the day (after our early morning swim in the lake) is to track down an eagle hunter, there are supposed to be several in the area, we have a couple of names, Arstan in Bokonbaev & Ishenbek in Kadji Sai (an ex-uranium processing town) but no directions. We stop each local we pass and ask for “berkutchi” and get pointed in the right direction. Then, like buses, we suddenly find 2 – a local gent is signalling for us to follow him round the corner to his friend's house while the young girl running down the road after us is telling us, in English, that her grandfather is a berkutchi. We end up visiting both. They very proudly show off their eagles, caught as chick, and genuinely used for hunting rabbits etc to feed the family. The one we hold is only a small 4kg female. They can be up to 8kg with a 2m wing span and can catch wolves!! Genna, at only 4kg, can only manage a fox!
Having held a fully grown eagle we continue anti-clockwise along the south shore of Issyk-Kul lake. It still stunning scenery. The mountains are getting higher as
we head towards the Central Tien Shan and the highest peaks in Kyrgyzstan. We ride for several hours taking in the scenery before our next detour along Jeti-Oguz Gorge famous for its bright, red sandstone rock formations. They are certainly different to any other we have seen and popular with the local who are our in force with their picnics, beehives and yurts.
From here its a short run to Karakol a charming little town complete with Chinese mosque (built entirely in wood without a single nail), smart wooden houses, the local market, Holy Trinity wooden Cathedral (used as a dance hall in Soviet times) and lots of parks filled with Soviet style statues. Its not at all touristy, just a nice local town with a relaxed feel. Its apparently the 4
th largest town in Kyrgyzstan but it doesn’t feel like it. And its only 150km to the Chinese border from here.
The next day we hitch a lift with a Russian 4WD truck and head to Altyn Arashan, an alpine valley in the heart of the Tien Shan Mountains. For 3hrs we slowly and steadily we climb through the Arashan Gorge up to 3000m. At times its
an incredibly bumpy ride on a road which is just a pile of boulders. Its very alpine; tall, graceful pine trees and gushing roadside streams. We eventually emerge above the tree line into an alpine meadows filled with familiar flowers; geraniums, fox & cubs etc. etc. I love it when I find flowers from my garden growing in the wild. Further along the plateau we reach a couple of isolated yurts and “”farmhouse” that are our home for the night. We spend the afternoon wandering through flower meadows and bathing in hot springs in readiness for the bumpy ride back down tomorrow.
(Nigel - that's two photos with people on - that's two comments you owe me now you & your bike have finished swimming to Beijing)
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