Lake News 1
- krolesh
- Jul 7, 2024
- 3 min read
Issyk-Kul, the second largest mountain lake in the world, perched right up in the northeastern corner of Kyrgyzstan, has many many faces.
And we've now seen a lot of them.
As we headed off from our cute little guesthouse near Barskoon, Anna Lena and Julian had just made the big decision not to head up to the Arabel Pass, as poor weather was forecast, and the pass sits at over 3,800m, which makes it a little risky at the moment.
So instead we all headed west, along the lakefront. It was picturesque.
These fishers were sitting on steel framed chairs, with their legs actually in the water. The fish they were catching were pretty small.
The road was pretty poor in parts, with lots of gravelly roadworks, and when the bitumen occasionally appeared, it was often pretty rough.
Muslim burial memorial
Stunning colours.
And a stunning spot to have lunch.
Yeah, there's mountains over the other side. Just like on this side, right behind us.
Anna Lena and I had met a couple of lovely Swiss cyclists in Karakol, Tanya and Joos, and we met them on the road again today, coming in the opposite direction. They'd camped on the beach the previous night, and luckily had just made it into their tent for the night when the rain bucketed down. I was glad we'd decided to stay in a guesthouse.
Skazka Kanyon
The Swissies told us about a place called "Fairytale Canyon," known locally as Skazka Kanyon, and, despite the fact that it looked like rain was coming, we headed up there, as it was only a couple of clicks up a partly sandy dirt road, heading away from the main lake road.
We just got there when the rain began pissing down.
We asked a young local guy who was selling touristy stuff if we could shelter in his yurt, as there was no other shelter whatsoever up there.
Our saviour
We sat the rain out in there, the guy gave us bikkies and offered us tea, and there were 2 young boys hanging out in there too.
The rain didn't last long, and soon we headed out to see the magnificently beautiful canyon, black clouds slowly sliding away from us.
A view of Issyk-Kul in the distance
This place really reminded me of parts of the Zhangye Geopark in China, or even of the Hammersley Ranges in northwestern Western Australia.
But of course it has its own uniqueness.
We eventually moved on, as it was getting late.
It rained again, but not too much.
There was a lot of trippy sculpture on the road.
This time we decided to camp on the lake, and we were so glad we did. The clouds had mainly cleared, and we had pretty much a dry night. It rained a little as we entered our tents for the night, but that was pretty much it.
It was absolutely stunning to be there, watching nature put on another brilliant dusk performance, all of us singing together, and basically being incredibly happy to be alive.
Our journey had reverted to the way it was before we met Penny, it was so much more relaxed, quiet and easy. We were still on the move every day, as Anna Lena and Julian had a deadline, but it was so much easier to come to decisions together without the feeling of being pressured.
And the extra pressure on me personally from that weird social situation had completely disappeared.
Go to Part 2
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