Travel Warning 2 - Ala Archa National Park

The Archa tree is common here in Kyrgyzstan and it is common in the United States, where it is called...the juniper.  Yes, the tree that gives us gin berries is all over the world and quite numerous in Kyrgyzstan.

Ala Archa National Park is quite close to Bishkek, between 20-30 kilometers away.  On Sunday, Sept 8th the school organized a new faculty hike.  We met at 9am at school and then loaded into a mini bus and puttered our way out of town.

Bishkek is polluted.  I've been in more heavily polluted areas, but it is still noticeable here.  Not terrible, but omnipresent.  Cholpon Ata in Issyk Kul was worse.  But Ala Archa is like a shower/bath/spa treatment for your lungs.  A million shining happy clean brushes revitalizing your insides and your soul.
We clambered out of the bus and across a raging but small river with a bridge that was partially improvised out of birch logs.

The Bridge

 On the Bridge

Then a steep ascent up a hill with a lot of switchbacks affording an incredible view of the valley and the mountains.  The snow covered peaks (glaciers) are at an altitude of over 4000m.  Here's a view of the valley we rose above, with one of the peaks in the background

On the hike we passed a few trees with cloth ribbons hanging in their branches.  According to our colleague/guide/friend/alpinist Valerie, you tie these ribbons in order to wish for good things for your friends and loved ones.  Never for yourself.

At a certain point in the hike, most of trees we were used to - juniper, Tian Shan Fir (looks like Douglas Fir), birch, cottonwood - these familiar trees gave way to Siberian Pines, a beautiful, slender tree that, in Kyrgyzstan, grows at high altitudes

And we soon arrived at the Alpinist's Graveyard.  The Alpinist's Graveyard contains monuments to mountaineers that lost their lives in Kyrgyzstan.  Sometimes the monuments are just monuments, but sometimes they are actual graves.

We had a brief history of the graveyard, although I was too busy chasing my son around to absorb a lot of it.  Until then, my son had been strapped onto my wife's back like Yoda in Empire Strikes Back and was enjoying his freedom by picking up sticks and hitting things with them.  My son was also obsessed with this monument, once he found out that it was an actual part to a helicopter.  It was a rotor blade from a helicopter that crashed during a hunting expedition in Ala Archa.  Our guide said, "Hunters always bring bad luck."

Also, seeing this rotor up close...it seems to only be held to the helicopter with the two bolts you see holes for here.  Seriously?  No helicopters for me.

  

The Graveyard was truly a beautiful place with a deep stillness and fresh cool air.  I wondered how they got the fences up the narrow trail and the monument stones as well.  No idea, but the rumor is that skilled Kyrgyz horsemen can basically get horses to climb mountains.

Some tombs were old fashioned and I think at least two of them were for women

And some were ultra-modern

There was also a box where you could leave a note, poem, drawing or whatever to commemorate your visit.  It was made from a converted Aeroflot food service cart

And a few more shots from the graveyard

And our friend Valerie's lost friend that he visited with us on that day

Then we stopped for lunch and poetry.  What's a trip to the mountains without poetry?  After the rest, it was time to hike further onward and further upwards.  For the next few kilometers we ambled through a cool forest before emerging onto an alpine meadow/hillside.  Here we paused to bask on the rocks and look out at the beautiful landscape.

The rocks

The landscape

Then it occurred to someone to suggest continuing on to a nearby peak.  Thinking we were going on a trail, we all agreed and...started trailblazing straight up the hillside.  It was extremely difficult and steep and the footing was treacherous.  Since we my wife had a two year old on her back, we turned back after 100 feet or so and waiting at the rocks for everyone else to return.

Steep!

We watched their assent closely, wondering if we should have tried it, but convinced that we could not have.  And we definitely could not have.  We also got to commune with some local flora and fauna.  

Some sweet mountain lichen

And we saw a large bird of prey, possibly a Golden Eagle.  It's hard to see as it was far away, but it's more or less in the center of the pic/of the sky

Watching our friends ascent

And their less orderly descent.

Jean Baptiste proved the most sure footed on the way down!

And then the long trip back down.

And home.  Don't worry, we've made it back to the mountains again...since we did a totally different hike, you'll here all about it too.

Also, our friends also posted on their blog about the trip.  Click here for another version of that sweet day!

Travel Warning One : Trip to Issyk Kul or How to Not Get the Plague

Fans of strange news from around the world know that recently, in the Issyk Kul region of Kyrgyzstan, someone died of Bubonic Plague.  So, since we decided to move here, Kyrgyzstan has been in the global media as a home of terrorists and world shaking disease.  Well, of course, we were in the area of the plague when it happened, although we were never closer than 100 miles or so from where the unfortunate fellow contracted the Black Death.  Some scholars put Issyk Kul as the place where the plague originated many centuries ago.  We managed, or rather, I managed, to get pretty ill at Issyk Kul, which was responsible for a major lag in my blogging - not that anyone noticed or cared...but I managed to not get plague.

On a positive legend note, Issyk Kul is also a putative resting place for St. Matthew.  It is also the site of many unexplored tombs and villages dating back thousands of years, including impressive petroglyphs that we skipped largely due to illness.  Central Asia is actually a treasure trove for a motivated archaeologist.

Well, to get to Issyk Kul, you have several options - Bus...no good due to my son's inability to sit still and not bother people.  Although, now that I've experienced Kyrgyzstan for over a month, it is an incredibly child friendly country.  My son gets pinched and poked and salaamed everywhere he goes.  Maybe people would be okay with him sitting in their laps?  Option two is the train, which takes 5-7 hours to go to the first town in Issyk Kul (a two hour drive), and then you have to get into a taxi.  Or, the way we decided, a taxi from Bishkek.  A taxi for this distance would be prohibitively expensive in the US, but it is not here.  Our trip to Issyk Kul was about 280 kilometers and cost about 2800 soms - ten som per km or about 20 cents per kilometer.  In American, 170 or so miles, at a cost of 16 soms per mile or about 30 cents per mile.

Interesting side note - cars here drive on the right hand side, like in the USA.  BUT, the driver's seat might be on either side.  The taxi up to Issyk Kul was British style, driver sits on right, and the taxi back was driver on left.  Honda and Toyota are most likely to have right side driver's seats and about, in my casual estimation, 1 in 4 or 5 cars has the driver on the right.

I took some notes on the 3 and a half hour drive to Cholpon Ata...
Trip
1.  Get out of dusty Bishkek
2.  Nice highway thru farms and bucolic countryside, ringed by mountains
3.  Mountains on both sides, valley narrows
4.  Narrow mountain road, gorge...my son is screaming(joyfully), I hope the driver can focus
5.  1 lane road!  Rivers!
6.  Lake!

We decided to go to Cholpon Ata because of the petroglyphs, ease of getting there - it's the most popular destination - and our ability to make reservations in English at a hotel.  I think a lot of people just go to Issyk Kul and take care of their housing arrangements later, something I am not willing to do.  So we booked into a place called the English Castle or the Castle Hotel.  It looks like this

Hence the name, English Castle.  It was a disappointment, however.  Mind you, not a huge disappointment but one nonetheless.  It was too expensive for what it was, the rooftop terrace was chained shut, there was construction going on to the right and behind the hotel and well, Cholpon Ata itself is kind of a dump.  You think you're pulling into Vegas...jokes, you're in Atlantic City.  We were looking for nature and pristine air, we got smog and crowds in town - a 30 minute walk - but actually, it was nice near our hotel.

And we had a nice view from our balcony of the mountains to the north

And a relatively secluded beach was, as advertised, a 10 minute walk.

One of the problems I've found travelling in Asia is that people throw their trash everywhere.  Not littering is so ingrained in me that I can't comprehend why people do this.  I don't think these photos will reflect how much trash there was...everywhere in Cholpon Ata...but it was everywhere.  Downtown Bishkek is pretty good, there are trash cans every few feet (just like NYC!).  But elsewhere, Oscar the Grouch would call Kygyzstan home.

Issyk Kul is surrounded by mountains.  Tall mountains.  It was the first time in my life that I've ever been swimming and looking at snow at the same time.

Come on...let's walk to the BEACH!!!  Note - be careful for poop, it's everywhere.  My son said it was Tiger poop, but we definitely saw some sheep grazing...

Looking south, away from the town, towards the Tian Shen or Celestial Mountains...the mountains completely encircle the lake, the world's second largest alpine lake...

The water was extraordinary and made the trip entirely worthwhile.  It was, with the exception of the water at St. John's in the Caribbean, the clearest water I have ever been in.  It was super shallow and it took quite a walk, well over 100 feet out, to manage to find water where you could not stand.  You could clearly see your feet the whole time, as if they were not in water.  It was also super calm, and since I'm not the strongest swimmer, I liked that too.  The water was cool, but not cold, I'd put it at about 70 degrees or so.  I was able to bring my camera out with me since it was so shallow and calm, and snap some shots from the water...Looking east at beach, then south at town, north at mountains than south at town again...

Town was noisy, dusty and overcrowded.  I have no visual proof of this, but trust me, Cholpon Ata's charm is not in town, it is on the beach.  Although it looks kind of nice here...

We had one of the best dishes we've eaten in Kyrgyzstan...although, it was one of the two possible places (both in Cholpon Ata) that made me sick.  No, I take that back - it made me sick, but breakfast the next day I think made me ever sicker.  This first meal was a violation of a rule that keeps me safe - NEVER, while travelling in Kyrgyzstan, eat fish.  The plate is was served on should have been warning enough

But it was tasty fish (salmon maybe?) and it was definitely a trip well taken, even if it was polluted, overcrowded and led to a week long illness.  Really, I mean it, but it's probably the last time I eat fish off of a sizzling cow plate.