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We drove back to Kochkor as we resumed out journey west . It was a great day - driving around the southern side of Lake Issy-Kul. All day it was the lake to the right of us and spectacular snow capped mountains to the left. Everywhere you looked were awesome views. We stopped in a small town for lunch. There seemed to be only one cafe serving food in the town so I think we stressed them out somewhat when all 25 of us turned up to the same place (we usually try to lessen the impact by going to different restuarants). We drove all afternoon and returned to the same homestay in Kochkor that we stayed in earlier. The next couple of nights were bushcamping - with roof seats most of the way!

We left Kochkor relatively early for a full day of driving . The roof seats were open as we were on backroads. This meant that we could sit up at roof level watching the world go by. We made our way west over a couple of 3000m mountain passes - once again spectacular scenery everywhere we looked. We followed the river most of the day (I think it is the Kochkor river ... need to check that one!) Around about 6pm we stopped besides the river and set up camp. It was a rather cold night as we were at around 3000m.

On the 9th we continued our journey It was pretty much a day of driving west. We moved out of the mountain passes of the previous day and returned to the flat dry land. The highlight was camping besides the Toktogul Reservoir (Kyrgyzstan's largest reservoir). It was really warm now that we were down out of the mountains so we went for a swim and were able to sit out around the fire longer than we had been able to over the last week or so! This was our last night camping for the trip - so it was certainly a pretty spot to finish up.

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