Amazing hoodoo rock formations!

Monday morning, we left the guest house and headed back down to the main highway where we had a stop to make. On the way up, we had seen some very cool looking rock formations across the river, but there were no signs and we could only see a track on the opposite side to get there.

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.

May Expenses... we knew it was going to be an expensive month

After all, we started the month in Oaxaca, Mexico and ended the month in Arkit, Kyrgyzstan!

We had a budget of $6,300 CAD ($4,635 USD) for the month. How did we do...?

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...

There's too much to see!

Our first two days here in Kyrgyzstan we had to deal with rainy weather, which is certainly not the best when you're living in a small campervan. For us, the idea of having a small campervan means that you want to be in decent weather so you can spend most of your time outdoors.

Well since those two days, it has steadily improved to the point where we woke up to a beautiful blue sky morning!

Now *THIS* was an adventure!

We woke up to the sound of a few raindrops hitting Vladdy's roof. Not a good sign, since we were headed up to the mountain pass at 3,300 meters (10,900') and if we were getting rain, it was likely snowing up there!

I peaked out through the curtains and I could see some patches of blue sky, despite the fact we could hear raindrops on the roof.

Up in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan

We had a very peaceful night beside the reservoir, although the wind did pick up towards morning. Still, the temperature was perfect, with an overnight low around 14C (58F).

We got up fairly early and did one more stop for fuel to fill the secondary tank and the portable tank. We were headed up a steep mountain road. It's actually listed as a major road, but it's unpaved and most of it is actually closed during winter.

My innards were all shook up

We woke up to the most beautiful day... during the morning, there was almost not a cloud in the sky. So we took advantage of the fantastic weather and the water access beside the river to get cleaned up, washed our hair, I shaved, and we hand washed some clothes and set them out to dry.

Yes, the water is ice cold!

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 woke up to sunshine and a gorgeous day... but we had snow later on!

When we left you last, we had used Vladdy's four wheel drive to access a beautiful meadow high up in the mountains.

When we woke up in the morning, we could see it was blue sky... but the sun hadn't yet risen enough to shine on our meadow.