Travel with Kevin and Ruth: Kyrgyzstan's beautiful Sary-Chelek Nature Reserve

Monday, June 1, 2026

Kyrgyzstan's beautiful Sary-Chelek Nature Reserve

We had breakfast at the guest house, and then set off on a 25 km (15 mile) drive further north into the mountains. Our destination was the Sary-Chelek Nature Reserve, a UNESCO world heritage destination.

If this were anywhere in Canada or the U.S., it would be packed with tourists just like famous Lake Louise is in Canada.

But this is Kyrgyzstan, and by Kyrgyzstan standards, it's a fairly busy place. Certainly not like Lake Louise though.

We had to stop at one gate to register where we were from, and then another gate to pay... 525 SOM for both of us and the vehicle. About $8 CAD, $6 USD in total.

Taken from a viewpoint on the way up to the park.

We were about to see more beautiful scenery.

This is the lake that I compare to Lake Louise.

Very similar view, I think!

But this is about as crowded as it gets.

Me, with the Lake Louise of Kyrgyzstan!

We went for a walk along the shoreline.

There are a lot of these big purple flowers.

So calm.

We walked along and met several other people. We stand out like a sore thumb, and many of the younger people say hello in English. This one guy called us over and asked if his parents could have a photo with us. So they took one, and I took an ussie of the five of us.

I bet they didn't expect to be world famous on Travel with Kevin and Ruth!

After viewing the main lake, we began a 12 km (7.5 mile) hiking trail that would lead us to six other small lakes.

Looking back at the busy parking area. Of course we were there on a Sunday.

The first of the small lakes.

It was around this time that we met another couple out hiking. Most people actually do horse riding tours, but there were several hikers out as well. This younger couple that we met were visiting from Uzbekistan. The woman spoke quite good English, although she said that from talking to us it was probably the most English she had spoken in 15 years! Really interesting talking to them.

Ruth and Fira

Kevin, Ivan, Fira, and Ruth.

Fira works in finance at a private school in Tashkent. And Ivan is a mountain guide for Uzbekistan. Fira was born in Moscow and only moved back to Uzbekistan when the most recent war started. She speaks Russian, English, and Uzbek, which is a form of Turkish. She can understand about 40% of Turkish because the languages are similar.

And she is a Russian citizen, so it was interesting to speak with her about that. She says "don't believe most of what you read in the news". Which as experienced travelers, we don't. Russia is actually quite high on our list of places to visit. Not the Moscow area, at least not right now... but Russia is like Canada... a huge country. And just because one part of the country is having problems, doesn't mean that there isn't a vast amount of land west of there that is just fine to visit.