Salaam and welcome to Kyrgyztan, a country which is defined by its mountains. This is why in this post we are focusing on outdoor adventures, we check out the local life and we’re going to taste the local cuisine. But first, I’m gonna show you how these things are made. Kyrgyzstan is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Although geographically isolated by its highly mountainous terrain which has helped preserve its ancient culture. Kyrgyzstan has been at the crossroads of several great civilizations as part of the Silk Road and other commercial and cultural roots. The country has periodically fallen under foreign domination and attained sovereignty as a nation-state only after the breakup of the Soviet Union in. We’re now in the the village of Kyzyl Tuu where we get shown how they built a yurt or Boz ui this is the name of a yurt here in Kyrgyzstan. So guys if you want to buy one, it’s $. So if you’re wondering: the record in building these is at nine minutes and seconds. Okay let’s see the inside.
Trekking Things to do in Kyrgyzstan Tian Shan Mountains Photo Gallery
And back to the yurt camp where I can actually show you how these boz ui look from the inside when they’re finished. So the bottom layercarpets and here We have the mattresses. Simple but comfy. Do you recognize this pattern: yes it is what you can see in the flag of Kyrgyzstan. Isn’t that mind-blowing? Of course these yurts are just was sleeping you have other facilities here such as the washing room and the showers here. So here you shower more or less outside. And then of course there is the big dining tent where you get to eat. I made it to the summer spot in Kyrgyzstan called the Issyk-Kul lake meaning the warm lake and this is because it never freezes in the winter despite the fact that it gets its water from all these snow capped mountain in the back because it is a saline Lake. It’s the second-largest saline lake in the world of the Caspian Sea. As you can see in summer this is the spot where the locals hang out, where they go swimming because this is basically their ocean. We start this outdoor adventure here in Krygystan in a real Kyrgyz way, on a horse with a horse trek. Now the horses take a well-deserved break while we can enjoy the view to the Issyk-Kul lake. What you see here is a true nomad camp this is where people live, they have their horses here, they have goats and cows. Over there they just slaughtered a goat right there. This is the life that the people used to have here in Krygystan. They were actually Mountain nomads. As I said % of the country are mountains, so they packed up their camp and set it up in the next Valley whenever they wanted or they had to. Welcome to Karakol a city which was founded by the Russians as a strategic location to explore everything which is southeast of Karakol. Today it’s a strategic location for all outer lovers because of its proximity to the highest mountains of the country. It’s time to introduce you to the food of Kyrgyzstan. For this we’re here in Karakol at the market. I’m here with Rakhat and we’re doing little food tour. So we have five stops and we’re starting here at the market with Ashlanfu.
OK, let’s try it! What we have here is a cold soup It’s basically the dish of the Dungan people (the Chinese Muslims) who live here in Karakol. It tastes a lot like garlic! Next is aah you guessed it. Dumplings! You can have them in many different versions and here we have a vegetarian one. Next is Laghman. There are also several versions of this Kyrgyz pasta. This is actually an Uyghur dish called Bozo Laghman. It’s fried laghman with beef. Mmmmh very good! Fried stuff is always good stuff! Next is a Tartare dish called Azo which is basically french fries, meat, pickles, cucumbers, onion and again garlic. I’m so full already. The next dish is oromo which is a roll with carrots and onions. Fifth stop is the fat cat. this is also how I feel! Here we have our dessert: chocolate cake and some iced latte. And so it begins. To warm up for the multi-day Trek which lays ahead I’m doing a one-day trek here with Milan. It’s called the Jolgolot Trek because of the village down there named Jolgolot so it’s a h trek, six kilometers. should be a nice warm-up program! This is where we’re going. So let’s take on the last two kilometers. You know the thing with hiking for me is I always need a good view to make it worth it. And with the panorama here, I would say: mission accomplished. So we finished the trek on meters, Down there is Karakol. and over there is the ski resort and the Mount Karakol, the glacier, meters high. Last chapter of the food experience is a dinner in a Dungan family. it’s just a few dishes I think we won’t leave hungry here. As you see the Kyrgyz cuisine is really high on carbs but it doesn’t really matter because you can do all these hikes so you don’t need to feel guilty afterwards. After all this warming up it’s now finally time to go on The -day multi-day trek I told you about and this goes from Boz Uchuk to Jergalan and we’re now preparing everything, packing up. With me on this trek is my guide Danyar. What is the program for the first day. So today we will walk around kilometers so we start from the Boz Uchuk village and now we go to the the path Boz Uchuk.
All right so we have an elevation gain of about meters on the trek and we start in a pretty nice surrounding. In this beautiful setting we gonna have lunch and as I told you they already prepared tea here. a very interesting way. We made it to the first campsite. Up there is the lake. We will head up to see the lake and meanwhile food is getting prepared here in this tent. There’s even a second lake a little bit higher up so we’re now approximately on meters and it was totally worth the climb I would say. It’s dinnertime whoo hello party time fellows For dinner we have Laghman, vegetables and beef. and look at the rest. What a camping feast! After seeing this glorious lakes yesterday it’s now time for the second day. Today we have kilometers ahead, we go up to a pass, and then down to a valley and up to another pass and then we camp. And we made it over the first pass at m. Now it’s on to the valley We are almost down and you can already see what’s waiting for us in the afternoon, we will make our way up here over that pass. So, it’s time to tackle that seven hundred meter ascend. Up hill now. We’re making good progress we’re more than halfway up. All the joys of hiking, through the wet plants, and then this pouring down. Not lucky today, not lucky pass almost there. So I made it to the top and I’m totally soaked.
Oh my god this here there were the plants that were like knee high and they were also stones hidden underneath the plants so you need to be really careful to not twist your ankle or something but anyway now I’m up here, I guess meters but I can’t see my guide. or the potters and I hope my guides are really down there. Otherwise I guess I need to follow the rivers to to village or something or I need to find a horse. Look at this beautiful valley. There in the back are some glaciers and some really high mountains. And I haven’t found my guide yet, but I saw a tent pitch over there. I arrived at camp and the Sun came out, and now it’s time to dry all the stuff. Everybody got wet on this trek, but look at this view of the campsite isn’t that amazing. What a beautiful campsite, now we start day three and we’ll go back to which village? Jergalan We’ll go to Jergalan village which is about forty to sixty kilometers we’re all wet, but it’s the last day so I’m looking forward to a hot shower. So I think actually that rain yesterday was planned so that my shoes are already wet and that I don’t care, crossing rivers like that with my shoes. and it’s actually more safe to cross the river having shoes on because without shoes, you can easily slide and hurt yourself. And there is our destination Jergalan, the most Eastern village in Krygstan Now that I got a fresh shower look who I met. whoo! You should check out his blog too. He’s also doing Kyrgyzstan posts here and what what we you up to now after the trek? We’ve been like living the healthy life trekking and drinking water, tea and eating and now we’re getting in that coca cola And candy we tried to find beer but coca-cola is the next best thing. And this is it from Kyrgyzstan. If you’re keen to visit this beautiful destination as well make sure to check out my related travel guide. If you like this post as always, feel free to comment on it give me a thumbs up, share with your friends. And don’t forget to comment to this blog for new travel posts, every Thursday. See you soon.
