Aug 24th : Chychkan Valley

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Sunday 24th, and we are leaving Kyzl-Oi and heading back thru the full length of the Suusamyr valley. This was a very scenic valley with no villages, but just hundreds of yurt clusters where the named farmers had moved for the summer. Each farmer/yurt cluster seemed to have it's own bunch of horses - sometimes a few dozen, sometimes hundreds all grazing on the dry barren grasslands. They frequently had little stalls on the roadside selling dry cheese balls, fresh kymys (mares milk) and along another stretch of the valley were selling honey obviously produced from the thousands of beehives we could see along the roadside.

At the end of the Suusamyr valley we turned south and headed over the Ala Bel pass (3184m), and then down a long descent into the Chychkan Gorge, where we overnighted at Oson 'motel' (apparently was the summer retreat of the First Communist Party Secretary back in the 1920's so still shows some signs of decadence, like saunas, gazebos suspended across the river etc ). We are right on the bank of a rushing mountain river, so John was off again to try and catch an elusive fish. But just in case he is not successful, we have ordered fresh trout from the restaurant for tea.

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