I bet you can guess what we chose!
The main highway was actually in very good condition.
Leaving our campsite Saturday morning.
Kyrgyzsytan mosque.
While the majority religion here is Muslim, it is more cultural Muslim than religious Muslim. Similar to the less conservative parts of Turkiye, they identify as Muslim, but "they do what they want". In fact, it is even against the law for a woman to wear a face covering. Some do wear the hijab hair covering though.
The main highway between Naryn and Balykchy.
Someone is moving house... literally!
Scenery along the way.
As expected, our next road was not much more than a track, however it was marked on the map as an actual road.
We passed by a mixed herd of animals, when we saw a female yak, and noticed that there was a black mass lying under her. This yak had just given birth, literally minutes before!
She was still cleaning her baby.
We hung around and watched for a while.
We watched as it made its first attempts to stand up.
Lunch break!
Sheep, cows, goats, and horses. Never have we seen so many horses!
This big girl was shy, but eventually Ruth managed to rub her tummy.
Kyrgyzstan is such an amazing country for just being able to stop and pull over where ever you like.
Yes, this is an actual marked road!
We had to do a muddy river crossing.
The view from Bjorn and Freya.
And we ended up free camping on the shore of Issyk-Kul Lake.
Issyk-Kul is the largest lake in Kyrgyzsten. It's a high alpine lake, at an altitude of 1,607 meters (5,272 ft) and reaches 668 meters (2,192 ft) in depth. It is the 8th deepest lake in the world.
The lake is surrounded by mountains on both shores.
It's definitely raining over there!
It never did rain on us though.
Dusk.
Ruth and Freya have been taking turns making dinner.
I'm always amazed at what they come up with using a single burner stove!
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The beauty of the terrain is unbelievable.
ReplyDeleteAlso watching the first moments of Life is a blessing.
Something I had hoped to do as a younger person.
Stay Safe and Enjoy!
It's about time.
We have really been loving the scenery here, it is absolutely gorgeous and very varied too,
DeleteIt was amazing to watch the newborn try to stand up and then when it finally did to watch it have it's first drink. We were very lucky indeed to have seen this miracle of life.
What a beautiful place to wild camp. Glad you drove through that muddy crossing in a rental, not Igor, though! Food looks delicious - those ladies can cook!
ReplyDeleteIt was a nice spot to camp but we both said that where we had lunch up in the mountain was far more beautiful.
DeleteI am not sure if Igor would have made it through that big puddle! It is really nice to have a vehicle with 4 wheel drive and the high clearance.
Freya made a really nice dinner that night, it was a popular dish from Northern Africa called Shakshuka.
What an adventure! I love it that you dare to drive this off the ‘road’. Can you please show which road this is? We are wondering if we can do so as we read only experienced locals can do so. It would be great if we know which one you are talking about and so we can maybe try as well. Always more beautiful than the highway.
ReplyDeleteIt certainly was! Beautiful scenery, we only saw a couple of vehicles the whole way and watching that newborn yak trying to stand for the first time and feed from it's mom was just amazing.
DeleteThe road is off the E-125 highway going up to Naryn in the village of Kochor, on the map it is lablelled as aTeriary Road M-054, it connects up to the M-063 near the end and then a very short time later the main southern road on Lake Issyk Kul (highway 10) You definitely need to have gas, a good mapping system and can handle 4x4 terrian well in order to do this road. It is also handy to have a few days supplies as well just in case you break down or decide to hang out up there for a few days.
Thank you for your quick answer! Im afraid I cant find the numbers M-054 and M-063 on the map. I do find M-064 and 68 and 69. Also, EM-11. (We are going to kol ukok lake near kochkor) We use google map and a physical map van Reise know-how. I asked chat gpt and he thinks there is a mistake in the numbers. He suggest to use other maps for offroad routes as google maps is old. Like OpenStreetMap, Mapy.cz of 2GIS. What do you use please? (We are also a belgian couple, going in September!)
DeleteWe tend to use the Organic Maps app a lot and it shows up on that map. Google does not show the "road" well enough. Look for the village of Kara-Kungoi that is to the east of Kochkor and then the road basically goes from the GPS coordinates 42.199690, 75.931966 and comes out at GPS 42.318718, 76.232249. You will not be able to follow the road using Google maps for this route but Organic Maps worked perfectly for us and you can download the mapping system before hand and use it offline. I hope this will help you out a bit better.
DeleteThank you for the explanation!
DeleteWe hope you can find the route when you are here, it was a fantastic drive.
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