I would like to underline that at this very moment I WRITE this chapter (it is posted only almost a week later because of lack of internet access), I am lying in a hammock in the glass veranda of a mountain refuge / lodge with a very nice view on Pik Palatka (4260m high) in Altyn-Arashan, a spartan hot-spring development at 3000m which does not really deserve its name, which translates into "Golden Spa". It is located in the middle of Arashan State Nature Reserve, which is said to be home to about 20 snow leopards and a handful of bears, although the only animals I saw likely are the horses, cows and sheep belonging to local shepherd families. This is the place where my 5-day-trek was supposed to arrive on the 4th day. So, after 2 days of "curing my wounds" and a lot of reflexion and hesitation, I decided to go up from the other end of the trek to Altyn-Arashan directly, to spend the night in the lodge, profit from the hot springs, walk up a bit the next morning and walk all the way back. Like that, I would at least be able to see part of the panorama, which I was supposed to see on my first trek. Instead of the 5-6 hours indicated in the Lonely Planet, it just took me 4 hours to climb up the 14 km and the more than 1000m of altitude (nota bene, or "OBS" as the Danes would say, especially for Pia: so somehow it seems that I am far fitter than the average after all!!! And this even though I was walking in my very light trekking shoes, which I had taken on this trip as "normal" shoes in addition to my hiking boots. Initially, I wanted to buy new hiking boots in an outdoor shop in Karakol, but somehow in the end did not manage. It would also not have been a good idea anyway, to walk for two days in new boots... ;-)
But before reporting on the hike itself (see below), let me give you some info on Karakol. Considering what it is, I really spent a lot of time in the town of Karakol (only 75000 inhabitants but it has a university!!) There were several reasons for that:
1) when I arrived it was a Sunday and before leaving on the trek, I had to organise a few things so I could not immediately leave the next day.
2) as you have already read (haven't you???), I had to shorten my trek and so had to return to Karakol after 3 days and I needed two days to recover and to take care of my "wounds"...
3) there was a nice place to watch the football (or soccer, actually... ;-) ) World Cup and there had been quite so e important matches (notably the quarter finals with Germany - France and Belgium - Argentina.
4) I met a bunch of very nice other travellers here and we hung out together quite a bit, watched football, talked ... (From Germany, France, United Arab Emirates, Uk and - of course - also my travel mates Sally (from the US) and Stacey (from Canada), who reminded me hat we had not only met before in Merw/Turkmenistan, in Khiva to drive to Bukhara and now on the way back from the trek and - again in the traveller hang-out Karakol café in Karakol, but we actually also met in Samarqand at the train station as we boarded the same train to Tashkent... ;-) I even met two French who attended a conference at Karakol university in the context of an EU-financed project on "training of officials"!!!
5) the hotel was quite comfortable, even though I was somehow "ashamed" to reveal the price of my accommodation (40$/night incl. breakfast), as all the others were more in the real backpacker category in the order of between 5 and 10 $.... But I had told myself before his trip that - if possible - I want to offer myself (and also deserve) a minimum level of comfort, amongst which a private bathroom.
6) and in the end, there were some quite nice houses / buildings here, which made very nice photos (see below) even if the town as such is quite ugly and somehow also a "hopeless place"... So do not let yourself be manipulated by these nice photos of the wooden church, the quite original mosque which looks like a Buddhist temple, and some of the wooden houses... ;-)
7) I wanted to go and see the animal market, which seems to be quite atmospheric here and this takes place only on Sundays ... (I did it this morning and indeed, it was worth it to soak in the essence of Kyrgyz traditional nomadic culture, in which the animals of course play a central role. It was quite funny to see how only 7 or 8 year old boys were already all alone on the market and trying to sell some sheep (and negotiating quite hard with an old lady or gentlemen...), the buyers carefully inspecting the animals by looking in their mouth or feeling certain parts of their bodies and then with a remark of almost disgust turning away (as they were probably really not good enough or it was just a tactic to push down the price... Who knows... Unfortunately, I left the memory card on the desk in my room and could not take any photos with my good camera (I was really angry about myself when I realised this just after my arrival at the market..), so I only could take some pictures with my i-phone... :-(
Photos Karakol at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A6Gf693ZJ0zKBL
Photos animal market at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A6GDdyTvdwZMX
First day of my second hike
On the way up, I only met a couple and a family coming down, several jeeps with foresters and 2 "mountain / jeep buses", transporting a group of older tourists downwards.... The "road" is quite a disaster and so the forester's jeep broke and I overtook them and never saw them afterwards... Sometimes, it was quite steep, be in general it was ok and the road mostly went along the Arashan river, which was really nice. Valentin, the guy who lives up here, is very nice but also quite a strange character, but a "normal" person probably cannot live here ... ;-) when I called earlier (Yes, he has a fix phone up here.... Have not seen any cables though..) and asked about the weather, he said with a heavy Russian accent: "The weather up here is like a woman, it always changes its mind!" ;-) when I arrived, he prepared some tea for me and then showed my the hotsprings, which are about 400m upstream. I wondered why he wanted to drive me there in his incredibly old "jeep", but the simple reason for this was that I had to help him load up an old woodstove, which he wanted to bring to the forester house, which was right next to the hotsprings.... The thing was quite heavy... ;-) Valentin has built a real pool, which collects the water of the hotsprings and has built a wooden shed / blockhouse around it. It was very nice to get in the warm (not really hot...) water after the hike... And Valentin was also praising the healing qualities of the water, proudly showing me the certificate of an analysis of the water done by a German "Professor" working for Degussa, who once came here and took two samples I a bottle with him and later sent the certificate. To me it does not mean much though, but hopefully, it has a good healing effect on all the old (and new) blisters.... I am actually the only guest tonight here, which really feels a bit weird. The lodge is extremely simple, especially the bed rooms and - after having seen the bedsheets, I am quite glad that I brought my sleeping bag with me... I do not think that they are washed after each time someone used them... ;-) Some of the other trekkers I had met in Karakol yesterday have told me about the "ambiance" there, as the lodge was basically full... A pity... Dinner was extremely light: just a tiny tiny little plate of salad, a small bowl of pea-potato soup and three slices of bread... Valentin told me that he would leave early the next morning, but there was a lady here as well which helps him keeping things in order (I had only seen her when she brought dinner, I do not know where she was hiding beforehand... ;-) ) He also have me some tips as to what little hike to do tomorrow morning, before starting my descent. At 21.00, the lodge was spookily silent and I will now go up into my room... Good night! ;-)
Second day of my second hike
As recommended by Valentin, i intended to go up to the two small lakes in the morning (4 hours up and down), before starting the decent to Karakol. I followed his explanations, which were however not very precise and some ended up walking and walking but there was no lake after 2 hours... I kept walking and eventually arrived at a lake after more than 3 hours, but it turned out it was the "wrong" lake... (Less nice than the other one, much smaller and more difficult to reach ...).. "But a lake is a lake" you will say and you are right...it's just that it took me almost 5 and a half hours instead of four and it was much more tiresome... I had a quick lunch at the lodge, before starting my descent and - of course - there were plenty of people arriving that day at the lodge, inter alia a French couple that I would meet again later.. The descent was relatively fast, but still had a certain impact on my knees... At some point, the driver of a truck loaded with wood asked me whether I want to hop on, but I refused (as I wanted to do both ways walking...) He just shrugged his shoulders and continued... I reflected a little on the issue and very soon decided that it would actually be a good idea finally to go with him (the knees,the shoes which were not appropriate, the fact that I would arrive earlier in Karakol, etc.) He was not far and I started waving and running after him but unfortunately he did not see me... I continued and after 10 minutes saw that he had stopped to fix again the ropes around the wood. I shouted, started running and waving, but he just got on his truck and left, literally 50 meters away!!! I was angry with myself for quite a while, notably because I wanted to continue still the same day from Karakol and I realised that it would be quite late.. Anyway... Another wrong decision the consequences of which I would have to bear just myself... (Rightly so... ;-) ) During this trip, i have to take so many practical decisions all the time and very quickly and I realise that quite often, it turns out that it was not the best decision I took... On the other hand, there were usually other opportunities following and the consequences were never severe... I arrived down at the road after about 2h45 but had to walk still almost another half an hour, because no minibus came along and I was not sure where the stop actually was. I was back at the guesthouse only at 17.45 to pick up the rest of my luggage which I had stored there... I was hesitating whether I should really leave that late but on the other hand I had already stayed in Karakol for so long. Fortunately, while I was considering this question on a park bench close to the guesthouse, a man with his baby-daughter in a stroller walked up to me and asked me whether I needed some help... I said "not really" but put the question I was just considering to him and he recommended to me to continue by minibus to a small village directly on the lakeshore, which was on my way... It was 2 hours away and therefore still feasible the same day. It turned out that he spoke German and was a tour guide. He put me in a taxi, explained to the driver to drive me to the minibus station and to if home onward transport to that village. Very nice indeed! It took 30 minutes for the minibus to fill up. The drive was very nice, along the Southern shore, where the road is mostly directly next to the road and on the other side, there are beautiful views on the mountains. I arrived in Kadhza-Say village at 20.45, when the sun was just going down... A bit of confusion to find a place for the night, but eventually I found a room in a former Soviet holiday resort directly on the lake .. (A pity I forgot to take pictures of the room and the "bungalow" I stayed in. But it was very clean and cheap. ;-) and they still served me some food as I was really hungry After this physical effort of the day: more than 8 hours of walking with considerable altitude up and down....
Photos at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A65fk75vG1hkOl
But before reporting on the hike itself (see below), let me give you some info on Karakol. Considering what it is, I really spent a lot of time in the town of Karakol (only 75000 inhabitants but it has a university!!) There were several reasons for that:
1) when I arrived it was a Sunday and before leaving on the trek, I had to organise a few things so I could not immediately leave the next day.
2) as you have already read (haven't you???), I had to shorten my trek and so had to return to Karakol after 3 days and I needed two days to recover and to take care of my "wounds"...
3) there was a nice place to watch the football (or soccer, actually... ;-) ) World Cup and there had been quite so e important matches (notably the quarter finals with Germany - France and Belgium - Argentina.
4) I met a bunch of very nice other travellers here and we hung out together quite a bit, watched football, talked ... (From Germany, France, United Arab Emirates, Uk and - of course - also my travel mates Sally (from the US) and Stacey (from Canada), who reminded me hat we had not only met before in Merw/Turkmenistan, in Khiva to drive to Bukhara and now on the way back from the trek and - again in the traveller hang-out Karakol café in Karakol, but we actually also met in Samarqand at the train station as we boarded the same train to Tashkent... ;-) I even met two French who attended a conference at Karakol university in the context of an EU-financed project on "training of officials"!!!
5) the hotel was quite comfortable, even though I was somehow "ashamed" to reveal the price of my accommodation (40$/night incl. breakfast), as all the others were more in the real backpacker category in the order of between 5 and 10 $.... But I had told myself before his trip that - if possible - I want to offer myself (and also deserve) a minimum level of comfort, amongst which a private bathroom.
6) and in the end, there were some quite nice houses / buildings here, which made very nice photos (see below) even if the town as such is quite ugly and somehow also a "hopeless place"... So do not let yourself be manipulated by these nice photos of the wooden church, the quite original mosque which looks like a Buddhist temple, and some of the wooden houses... ;-)
7) I wanted to go and see the animal market, which seems to be quite atmospheric here and this takes place only on Sundays ... (I did it this morning and indeed, it was worth it to soak in the essence of Kyrgyz traditional nomadic culture, in which the animals of course play a central role. It was quite funny to see how only 7 or 8 year old boys were already all alone on the market and trying to sell some sheep (and negotiating quite hard with an old lady or gentlemen...), the buyers carefully inspecting the animals by looking in their mouth or feeling certain parts of their bodies and then with a remark of almost disgust turning away (as they were probably really not good enough or it was just a tactic to push down the price... Who knows... Unfortunately, I left the memory card on the desk in my room and could not take any photos with my good camera (I was really angry about myself when I realised this just after my arrival at the market..), so I only could take some pictures with my i-phone... :-(
Photos Karakol at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A6Gf693ZJ0zKBL
Photos animal market at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A6GDdyTvdwZMX
First day of my second hike
On the way up, I only met a couple and a family coming down, several jeeps with foresters and 2 "mountain / jeep buses", transporting a group of older tourists downwards.... The "road" is quite a disaster and so the forester's jeep broke and I overtook them and never saw them afterwards... Sometimes, it was quite steep, be in general it was ok and the road mostly went along the Arashan river, which was really nice. Valentin, the guy who lives up here, is very nice but also quite a strange character, but a "normal" person probably cannot live here ... ;-) when I called earlier (Yes, he has a fix phone up here.... Have not seen any cables though..) and asked about the weather, he said with a heavy Russian accent: "The weather up here is like a woman, it always changes its mind!" ;-) when I arrived, he prepared some tea for me and then showed my the hotsprings, which are about 400m upstream. I wondered why he wanted to drive me there in his incredibly old "jeep", but the simple reason for this was that I had to help him load up an old woodstove, which he wanted to bring to the forester house, which was right next to the hotsprings.... The thing was quite heavy... ;-) Valentin has built a real pool, which collects the water of the hotsprings and has built a wooden shed / blockhouse around it. It was very nice to get in the warm (not really hot...) water after the hike... And Valentin was also praising the healing qualities of the water, proudly showing me the certificate of an analysis of the water done by a German "Professor" working for Degussa, who once came here and took two samples I a bottle with him and later sent the certificate. To me it does not mean much though, but hopefully, it has a good healing effect on all the old (and new) blisters.... I am actually the only guest tonight here, which really feels a bit weird. The lodge is extremely simple, especially the bed rooms and - after having seen the bedsheets, I am quite glad that I brought my sleeping bag with me... I do not think that they are washed after each time someone used them... ;-) Some of the other trekkers I had met in Karakol yesterday have told me about the "ambiance" there, as the lodge was basically full... A pity... Dinner was extremely light: just a tiny tiny little plate of salad, a small bowl of pea-potato soup and three slices of bread... Valentin told me that he would leave early the next morning, but there was a lady here as well which helps him keeping things in order (I had only seen her when she brought dinner, I do not know where she was hiding beforehand... ;-) ) He also have me some tips as to what little hike to do tomorrow morning, before starting my descent. At 21.00, the lodge was spookily silent and I will now go up into my room... Good night! ;-)
Second day of my second hike
As recommended by Valentin, i intended to go up to the two small lakes in the morning (4 hours up and down), before starting the decent to Karakol. I followed his explanations, which were however not very precise and some ended up walking and walking but there was no lake after 2 hours... I kept walking and eventually arrived at a lake after more than 3 hours, but it turned out it was the "wrong" lake... (Less nice than the other one, much smaller and more difficult to reach ...).. "But a lake is a lake" you will say and you are right...it's just that it took me almost 5 and a half hours instead of four and it was much more tiresome... I had a quick lunch at the lodge, before starting my descent and - of course - there were plenty of people arriving that day at the lodge, inter alia a French couple that I would meet again later.. The descent was relatively fast, but still had a certain impact on my knees... At some point, the driver of a truck loaded with wood asked me whether I want to hop on, but I refused (as I wanted to do both ways walking...) He just shrugged his shoulders and continued... I reflected a little on the issue and very soon decided that it would actually be a good idea finally to go with him (the knees,the shoes which were not appropriate, the fact that I would arrive earlier in Karakol, etc.) He was not far and I started waving and running after him but unfortunately he did not see me... I continued and after 10 minutes saw that he had stopped to fix again the ropes around the wood. I shouted, started running and waving, but he just got on his truck and left, literally 50 meters away!!! I was angry with myself for quite a while, notably because I wanted to continue still the same day from Karakol and I realised that it would be quite late.. Anyway... Another wrong decision the consequences of which I would have to bear just myself... (Rightly so... ;-) ) During this trip, i have to take so many practical decisions all the time and very quickly and I realise that quite often, it turns out that it was not the best decision I took... On the other hand, there were usually other opportunities following and the consequences were never severe... I arrived down at the road after about 2h45 but had to walk still almost another half an hour, because no minibus came along and I was not sure where the stop actually was. I was back at the guesthouse only at 17.45 to pick up the rest of my luggage which I had stored there... I was hesitating whether I should really leave that late but on the other hand I had already stayed in Karakol for so long. Fortunately, while I was considering this question on a park bench close to the guesthouse, a man with his baby-daughter in a stroller walked up to me and asked me whether I needed some help... I said "not really" but put the question I was just considering to him and he recommended to me to continue by minibus to a small village directly on the lakeshore, which was on my way... It was 2 hours away and therefore still feasible the same day. It turned out that he spoke German and was a tour guide. He put me in a taxi, explained to the driver to drive me to the minibus station and to if home onward transport to that village. Very nice indeed! It took 30 minutes for the minibus to fill up. The drive was very nice, along the Southern shore, where the road is mostly directly next to the road and on the other side, there are beautiful views on the mountains. I arrived in Kadhza-Say village at 20.45, when the sun was just going down... A bit of confusion to find a place for the night, but eventually I found a room in a former Soviet holiday resort directly on the lake .. (A pity I forgot to take pictures of the room and the "bungalow" I stayed in. But it was very clean and cheap. ;-) and they still served me some food as I was really hungry After this physical effort of the day: more than 8 hours of walking with considerable altitude up and down....
Photos at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A65fk75vG1hkOl
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