Up, down, all around!

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Yes, for anyone who is wondering, we are still alive. Lack of internet cafe's and lack of patience on dial-up connections has contributed to our long silence!

We have been in Kyrgyzstan since August 27th. It's a beautiful country with lots of mountains and fresh air. The country is not heavily populated and doesn't have big cities so we've been camping quite a bit.

Pictures are not working for us right now... The application will not load properly. Maybe later we'll be able to upload some files...

Tomorrow we leave for Uzbekistan. Another adventure!

Here are some of the things we have been up to:

Our first wedding anniversary...

September 1st was our first wedding anniversary! For those dying to know how we celebrated, it was not in a fancy hotel with clean clothes. ;-) On September 1st, we woke up in the morning and drove for a couple of hours out of Bishkek to a place called Ala Archa. We setup our tent and Meghan's cook group prepared lunch. After lunch, we went on a hike for a couple of hours to a waterfall. The waterfall was not spectacular but the hike was beautiful! It was cool and sunny (not HOT and sunny!). After the walk we had to head back to camp so that Meghan could cook dinner with her team for an intimate group of 26. That's a lot of tomatoes in case anyone is wondering... ;-)

First homestay in Nairn

Ohhh... We had so much fun in our first homestay! Here were the highlights:

- Walked around with our socks on. No shoes! Clean floors!
- Ate in a beautiful dinning room. China teapots, nice cutlery, lace tablecloth.
- Not a squat toilet.
- Jam. ooooohhhhh,..... jam! Raspberry. Apricot. Blackcurrant. ooooohhhh.
- Soft bread. Soft! Not hard and so crunchy you had to use your back teeth to tear it off! Bread is sacred in central asia so if you take it, you have to finish it!
- Narrowest bed yet that we have slept in together.
- Where we fell in love with felt carpets...

Felt Making

One of the first things we saw in Kyrgyzstan was a felt making place. We were in a town called Kochkor. We saw the whole felt making process (which we won't go through here!) and were very impressed. We made our own felt square with a donkey and mountains with an orange truck driving... One of the other girls took the felt home so we can't show it to you but it was a fantastic experience! Kwesi had enough pictures to show the step-by-step...

One of the guys on our trip was courted by the girl demonstrating how to make the felt and had red cheeks for hours afterwards! The museum was fun too as we were dressed up in wedding outfits and had our picture taken.

Horseback riding!

On September 11th, we got to go horseback riding! We were in a town called Arslanbob. (Cool name, eh?) It was not on the original itinerary but we were very happy to go there.

The town is in a valley with moutains all around. It's extremely pretty and very fertile (unlike the rest of Kyzgyzstan which is mostly pastures with no trees). We took the horses up into the hills and walked along fantastic pathways. The view over the valley was awesome. The horses loved all the apples they found as they were dropping from the trees.

We walked through a walnut forest. The area is famous for all the walnut trees and we did in fact eat many while we were there! Families move into the forest for a couple of weeks in September to pick up all the walnuts that fall to the ground. We saw lots of families harvest nuts and also harvesting potatoes.

The homestay was really wonderful. The home had a couple of building surrounding a courtyard with a beautiful garden. They had apple trees and so many flowers. The room we stayed in was upstairs in one of the buildings and we had a nice enclosed balcony or sunroom with our eating area. We ate a yummy snack at our table (we still have trouble trying to fold ourselves to sit on the ground and eat...) and a wonderful breakfast of milk rice. (They milked their cow that morning for us!) For dinner, we all got together at another house (that would be 26 people) and ate on the lawn. They had laid out blankets and cushions. It was quite the site to see all the foreigners try to sit on the ground and eat! We had a few numb limbs... haha The flowers were increadible and we even had entertainment. Kwesi danced with the locals and had a 2 shots of vodka as the prize. We were all entertained! The 2 shots was probably 2 shots too many... We ate plov (flavoured rice with meat).

Swimming and laundry in the resevoir

We camped one night near the large resevoir in Kyrgyzstan called Toktogul. We arrive in the afternoon which gave us some time to walk around and enjoy the warm sunshine. We spent the first little while trying to figure out how to get into the water without getting sucked into the mud so deep you would never get out! The swimming was such a highlight. We still talk about it. It felt CLEAN. Imagine, clean! Kwesi also took the opportunity to wash clothes in the water. It was a tricky business with the mud but it was great to put on washed pants the next morning! The inside of our tent was the "drying room". ;-) We slept with just the mesh door closed so that we could see the stars and the water. It was heaven.

Camping in Djeti Oguz

We arrived in Djeti Oguz with high hopes of good weather and fanastic hiking. We arrived around lunchtime with nothing but a clear sky and fluffy clouds. We set out on a walk in the afternoon and found ourselves in a yurt enjoying tea and snacks! It was quite fun and the tea was fantastic. We walked further on to a big valley that is pasture land with all sorts of animals and yurts. It was quite pretty.

After dinner, the cold started to seep in. We had a feeling it would get cold at night and sure enough, it was another "sleep with your toque on" night. It started to rain heavily in the night. In the morning, it was very cold. Thankfully Kwesi is a tent master and we did not get much water in our tent!

The rest of that day we spent huddled in the tent reading. Kwesi's group was preparing dinner so he had to be back early anyway. The rest of the group was huddled in the truck! It was a sauna in there and I can't say it smelled rosy! Cold, cold, cold and wet, wet, wet. Kwesi's group cooked in the cold and we huddled together to eat dinner. The following morning was no better... It was very cold and had now started to snow! We had the right sleeping gear to handle the cold and enough layers to be ok but not everyone in the group was prepared for such terrible weather... We abandonded hope of going higher in the mountains and decided to go back to a hotel to dry out.

The afteroon at the hotel was oooh, so nice... Kwesi helped setup all the tents outside to dry out. The sun was poking through and it had stopped raining. The cook group made us lunch in the parking lot! We decided not to do our own laundry and for the first time paid someone else to do it for us! It was a much needed break and a spirit lifter.

Ok, that's it for now! We'll try and upload some pictures later. Kyrgyzstan is very picturesque and can't simply be described. We recommend travelling here!

We are off to find some more good food! Always a priority. Plus, they have american chocolate bars... And, good icecream. The one with the camel on the front is the best....

Meghan and Kwesi

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Photos

Flowers in Kyrgyzstan
Here are some beautiful blue flowers we saw when hiking in Kyrgyzstan.

Viewpoint in Arslembob
This is where we got off the horses to look at the view. You can see you high we climbed with the horses!

Kwesi on a horse in Kyrgyzstan
Kwesi on his horse! Yes, he felt a bit big for the horse but it was a great experience and the horse was much stronger than it looks!

Beautiful home in Arslembob
All of the homes were always surrounded by wonderful flowers.

Comments

[ahli chung]

Central Asia !
It's always on my travel list ! Central Asia ! cant wait to see your photos ! keep post !good luck and take care. Lee

[Evelyn]

updates
Hi Meghan and Kwesi, glad to hear you're still surviving the camping! Geoff and I got back from Yellowstone last week and we camped for 7 days. It was sooo cold that I think we were happy to be done with the camping! I don't know that Geoff would survive a much longer camping experience! haha :) Can't wait to see pics... hope you make it to Kazahkstan too... then you can make disparaging comments about Uzbekistan a la Borat!

[Jason]

Awesome!
As usual, I am 100% jealous. Nicely done, all around. Strangely enough, the last time I got an e-mail from Kyrgyzstan, it was from a buddy of mine who wasn't "officially" there.