Things just weren't coming together...

Our goal was to make it to the Saray-Chelek Nature Reserve, however we really didn't think we'd make it by Saturday because it was a 150 km (93 mile) drive, and you don't put on a lot of kms in an hour's worth of driving!

Especially when the traffic situation looks like this...

Yes, this was on the main primary road coming down from the mountains.

We encountered between eight and ten different animal migrations... goats, sheep, and cattle. You have no choice but to pretty much come to a complete stop and wait for the herd to pass.

Not sure why, but they have painted one horn blue!

Between that, and road construction, and road conditions, you are lucky to be able to average 50 km/h (30 mph) on a consistent basis. But it doesn't bother us at all... we think it's kind of funny!

Scenery along the way.

That's an interesting formation.

Heading down to Orto-Tokoy Reservoir.

Even though we should be driving further, we had read of a possible overnight spot on the shore of the reservoir, and if it was really good we just would have stayed there. However when we arrived, there were two problems... first, it was flooded... we couldn't even get there. And second, we were at much lower elevation, and a two day heat wave was passing through. It was much too warm to stay there, but we did stop for a late breakfast.

We parked here where our road came to an end. You can see where our road continues on the opposite side of the flooded area.

After a break, we continued into the town of Ala-Buka to get some groceries. We found what looked like to be the largest grocery store in town, but even then you never know what they're going to have.

We have yet to see a fresh butcher... all the meat is frozen.

Frozen fish.

There are always lots of sweets... the Kyrgyz people love their candies!

We carried on until we came across a Saturday market. This is the first local market we've been to...

More sweets.

Local ladies clothing.

Veggies. 

From there, we filled up the fuel tank (again!), but it didn't take very much. Maybe one day I'll tell you about how the UAZ Buhanka fuel gauge system works (or doesn't)!

Looking across the border to Uzbekistan.

Part of our route took us right along the border between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. The border in this area is separated by a razor wire fence. And a few very bored looking border guards.

If you click the photos to zoom in, you can see the razor wire fence.

Another possible overnight location was coming up. A view from a ridge, and it would have been a nice view except that the vegetation was so long it wouldn't have made for a nice campsite. 

Eventually, we gave up.

We found a place further down the road to stop for a late lunch...

This is a typical lunch for us.

While we were having lunch. I zoomed in on these "hoodoo" style rock formations. They're across the river, but we should be able to get closer to them on our way down from the park on Monday.

For the first time since we arrived here, I wasn't having a lot of luck finding a suitable overnight spot. So I did some research about guest houses just outside the park. I came across one where the owner advertised "English spoken", and to be honest we were kind of looking forward to that! We could use a normal shower and toilet, plus you can justify anything you want! So we decided to drive up to the village of Arkit just outside the park gate.

Scenery along the way.

More great scenery.

We met Mrs. Sabira, and sure enough she speaks not bad English. She's probably about our age, and considering she took it in university 40 years ago, her English is not bad! And, she had a room with two single beds available in her guest house. 2,400 SOM ($38 CAD, $27 USD) for the two of us, including breakfast. Dinner was an additional 400 SOM ($6.30 CAD, $4.60 USD) each per person, so we signed up for that as well.

Dinner is served.

The other rooms were busy with families, so lots of children around. We though it might not be a quiet night, but by 11:00pm it was totally silent and we had a good sleep. The only problem was in the morning because the bathroom was busy, but we were okay. In fact we decided to stay another night!

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Great deal on this Instant Pot Air Fryer.

And in Canada...

Greenworks Corded Lawnmower.