More great scenery... and delicious strawberries!

We woke up cold, so we fired up the engine and got driving right away. And with the sun shining, it didn't take long for us to warm up, but we had one more mountain pass to do before we could relax and have breakfast on the other side.

We passed several yurt camps...

I have no idea how they make money to live out here.

It's very remote.

We turned right here to head up to Otmok Pass.

Big statue in the middle of nowhere.

The gateway to Otmok Pass.

Scenery along the way.

They had a recent dusting of snow up here!

Made it to the top of Otmok Pass at 3,326 meters (10,900').

Brrr. I stepped outside to take some photos and it was a little chilly!

View looking down the other side.

That's a big herd of horses!

There are a lot of horses in Kyrgyzstan!

Back at lower levels, we stopped in the village of Taldi-Bulak to have breakfast. We pulled onto the grass beside a small river and set up the table to cook on. School children were coming by on the gravel path behind us on their way to school, and they would all smile, wave, and say hello (salamatsyzby).

This was the view out Vladdy's side door.

I should have taken more photos of where we were parked, and some of the children. I actually thought I had, but I guess not! We sat and relaxed for a couple of hours, then filled up the fuel tank before getting underway again.

Vladdy has two fuel tanks... a main tank that holds 50 liters, and a reserve tank that holds 25 liters. He also has a spare portable gas can that holds another 10 liters. 

The flag of Kyrgyzstan built into the side of this hill.

This road was actually in quite good shape, and with very little traffic.

Scenery along the way.

A Kyrgyz warrior and snow leopards.

Kyrgyzstan apparently has around 600 wild snow leopards.

Entrance to the small city of Talas.

We needed to do some more stocking up, and we like the Globus grocery store chain and there was a small one in Talas. So we drove into town, to find that a lot of the main roads are torn up and being reconstructed. They seem to be doing a general "beautifying" of the town, which will be great when it's finished... but not so great for visiting now!

They obviously do some kind of outdoor patio here in the evening.

Lots of construction going on.

Central Talas.

One of the things that we don't enjoy about Kyrgyzstan is the lack of public bathroom facilities. And the quality of the ones they do have is severely lacking. We were in the Globus store, and I needed to pee. They didn't have a bathroom, and I went back outside to see if I could find one. I went into a small shopping mall and finally saw the familiar worldwide "WC" sign. But the door was locked and a handwritten sign (translated by Google Translate) simply said "Not working".

I finally found a public bathroom with a cost of about 15 cents. I would have happily paid more to find one that wasn't nasty. And of course it's difficult to find a bathroom with a "western" toilet. Yes, hotels and most guest houses have them, but anywhere else it's a squat toilet. We totally admit to not being comfortable having to "go" that way!

We got what we needed to get and headed about 10 kms out of town to a riverside wild camping site.

The view out Vladdy's windshield.

Vladdy, parked at GPS 42.414924, 72.285569

While we had been in town, we picked up a 1/2 kilo of absolutely delicious sweet strawberries. You know, like the kind we used to get as kids before they started making those big tasteless steroid strawberries you tend to get in Canada and the U.S. now.

We ate them all in one go, they were so good!

A little bit of color at sunset.

Looking up the river at dusk.

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