Another day in Kyrgyzstan – trekking and contemplating as best we can!

September and the rest of fall are once again seeing me get caught up in a whirlwind of business trips – when I’ll have no time at all for getting on with my tales from the Karavshin and Oka River side. So let me crack on during these here few days in the office between trips…

So, back to Kyrgyzstan – and up next: a two-day trek across Pamir-Alay mountain landscapes – up to and over the Ak-Tyubek pass, and a drop down into the next gorge over. For experienced mountaineers the pass itself is a trek-in-the-park, since it sits a measly 4,500 meters above sea-level; but for office plankton an altitude like that is quite the slog. But no real bother: it can still be conquered all the same. And it’s oh-so worth it – for the views on show up top are simply magical!…

Off we popped. Up there! ->

Incidentally, here’s a curious thing: you see the soft… sit-pads (in Russian the popular term is somewhat vulgar, but I’ll spare your tender sensibilities;) hanging off the back of all our backpacks? Well, for some reason they’re only popular only with Russian hikers! It’s astonishing that such a cheap and thoroughly handy contraption (a soft, warm, featherweight seat enabling you to sit practically anywhere – no matter how rugged the terrain) gets carried about by our compatriots and no one else :).

Meanwhile, hike-cushion musings aside, onward! Upward! And once again – the mountain views: oh-my-grandiose–gorgeous! ->

Every so often we crossed the stream/river that was traveling along with us:

Higher and higher – and the views ever more beautiful:

And here are the donkeys – having caught us up:

And this is as good a time as any for a brief lyrical digression about these wonderful creatures…

Since we’re “comfort-class tourists”, we carried on our backs only the bare essentials (rain gear, water without fail, a snack if needed, and drone-photo-video kit for whoever was filming – to bring some cheer to everyone left behind at work in the office). Everything else was hauled along the same route by the donkeys and a little horse – and here they are:

They’d usually catch us up somewhere around the halfway mark; for them it’s all in a day’s work – clip-clop-clip-clop, up and down. Our cherished beasts of burden moved at least three times faster than we did – and were never in any hurry.

And one of them was carrying the thing we so badly needed come evening at the camp: beer! Plus a drop of locally-sourced, perfectly decent Kyrgyz brandy :)

Some of us grew so attached to the donkeys that we’d regularly feed them ->

After snacks all-round – including for the donkeys – back at it!…

Some of the close-up views were as striking as those from afar:

Everybody and their dog donkey took a photo of that installation, but we had to keep moving on… and on, and on some more. And the further and higher we got, the more picture-perfect the scenes unfurling before us became:

Time for a rest. An hour of walking; three minutes of lying down.

Lovely! And not a soul in site (besides us).

We reached the next camp; coming up – the usual routine: dinner, sleep, wake up, breakkie, off!…

No shower, and the WC was just a hole in the ground – albeit with a tent around it. To be expected up here.

Here’s our cozy little camp – pitched in arctic-tundra-like conditions, some 3,500 meters above sea-level:

And here’s the above-mentioned “WC”. Actually, it does resemble a “closet”, so I’m being a bit unfair with those quotation marks ) ->

We were hoping it wouldn’t rain that evening…

But, alas, that’s just what we got. So we simply holed up in our tents or just slept instead of getting lost in the views all around – which were only presented to us the following day:

And over there – the mountain pass we’d be crawling up to tomorrow ->

The best hi-res photos from Karavshin are here.