Meeting fellow teachers and meandering through the mountains

After leaving Karakol, (where we had two lovely days in an immaculate guesthouse) we drove to the village of Semyonovka where some of the 2016 World Nomad Games were held. Nothing much to see really, so we wandered down to the river. In a clearing nearby there were about 30 people lazing around and enjoying the sunshine, having a massive picnic. Turns out they were local school teachers, who only do this once a year! We chatted for a while as one of them was an English teacher at the local high school. They invited us for lunch, but we had just had breakfast and the menu was mostly meat…all sorts of sheep meat!

The road deteriorated after that, and it took Milan quite a while to negotiate about 10 kilometres over very rocky ground. We met a couple of women from the Netherlands who were riding bikes from one village to the next…I think they might have done it quicker than us! Finally arrived at Grigorievska Gorge, where horse riding and eagle photos were on offer. We settled for a late lunch!

Last stop was Cholpon-Ata, on the north side of Issyk Kul. A city very popular with Russian and Kazakh tourists. We loved the petroglyphs from the 5th Century BC…scattered throughout a massive rock filled paddock…Art History comes to life when you see things like that!

We are back in Bishkek now, enjoying our very comfortable hotel room…ready to head off to Kazakhstan in a couple of days…but first we need to organise our visas for Uzbekistan…that’s tomorrow’s main job.