Nomads and Mountains: Kyrgyzstan

A city of wide, tree-lined boulevards and marble-fronted municipal buildings, Bishkek retains the feel of a Soviet-block capital circa 1990, though it makes an engaging place to find one’s feet before heading into the mountains. After a visit to Ala-Too square and the museum, you’ll head for sprawling Osh Bazaar. Your guide will show you around the fragrant spice and nut section, and the tailor’s wing across the road at Kyyal Bazaar, where lines of small shops sell horse tack, yurt paraphernalia and the traditional ‘akalpak’ felt hats.

Rising from a grassy plain against a backdrop of ice peaks, the Burana Tower in the Chuy Valley forms a superbly iconic spectacle. The remains of a minaret that once stood 45m (145ft) tall, it is virtually the sole vestige of an ancient Sogdian city that once stood on the site. Dotted around a field next to the tower is a collection of eery grave markers with carved faces, believed to be around 1,500 years old. Your ultimate destination today will be one of the most visually arresting natural spectacles in Central Asia: Song Kol Lake – a shimmering expanse of water encircled by grassy hillsides. You’ll spend the night in a yurt camp by the lakeshore.

At an altitude of around 3,000m, Song Kol is a large freshwater lake surrounded by grasslands where nomadic herders graze their flocks in the summer, living in traditional felt yurts. Horses are available for rides ranging from short ambles to day-long rides. Your accommodation will be in one of a dozen or so yurt camps that spring up here between May and September. Warm layers are essential at night, when temperatures plummet. It can snow at any time of year this high above sea level.

Today’s drive takes you northeast to into the country’s central heartland. You’ll pause for lunch at the town of Kochkor, where there’s a lively bazaar, before pressing on in the afternoon to Issyk Kul.

In the course of the day you’ll visit a yurt-making workshop, take tea with a local family in a typical Kyrgyz village and enjoy picnic lunch on the lakeshore. Before reaching the end of the day’s journey, you’ll also explore the Skazka ‘Fairy Tale’ Canyon, famed for its weird red and ochre rock formations. Your night halt will be at a guesthouse in the town of Karakol, a former Russian colony that preserves much of its traditional Tsarist-era wood architecture, including a magical little Orthodox church. For supper, you’ll have the option of dining in a local restaurant or with a local family.

After a tour of Karakol’s handful of sights, your trip takes you to the Jety Orguz Gorge, in the northern slopes of the Terskei Ala-Too range. The valley is known principally for its striking sandstone landforms, such as the blood-red crags of the ‘Seven Bulls’. Beyond, the road winds along the river through beautiful forests of blue spruce, crossing no less than five log bridges before arriving at the flower meadows of Kok Jaiyk at the upper reaches of the valley. Overlooked by the shining ice summits of Orguz Bashi peak (5,165m), your camp for the night will be at an altitude of 2,600m.

The route starts with a gentle ascent of a narrow, wooded gorge leading to alpine meadows, where you’ll pause for a picnic lunch before pressing on to the tent camp at the foot of the Telety Pass – a hike of approximately 16km which should take between six and eight hours.

Complete this stage and you will have covered 18km in six to eight hours of walking, the highlight of which will have been the superb views from the Telety Pass.

Anyone interested in plants will have plenty to get excited about in the blue spruce forest and meadows carpeted with primroses, asters, and giant white edelweiss which you cross in the course today’s walk. The real show-stopper, however, is a viewpoint from where (weather permitting) you’ll have a marvellous, uninterrupted view of Karakol peak (5,216m), the highest summit in the Terskei Ala-Too range.

From Sirota, you leave the forest behind, following the course of a mountain stream to a waterfall the gushes from Ala Kol Lake, site of your next tent camp, at an altitude of 3,600m.

The name ‘Ala Kol’ translates as ‘Colourful Lake’, and you’ll immediately see why. A spectacular phalanx of ice peaks rise sheer from its shoreline – one of the loveliest views in the Kyrgyz mountains. An hour-and-a-half ascent brings you to a high pass above the lake, from where it’s downhill for the rest of the day to the Keldike Valley. Eventually, after six or seven hours of walking, the trail plunges back into spruce forest again as it drops down to the Arashan Valley Camp, where you’ll be able to ease your tired limbs in a thermal hot tub!

Jet skis, bathers and sun worshippers from Russia and Kazakhstan throng the shores of the lake at Cholpon Ata in high summer, but for most of the year, this resort on the north shore of Issyk Kul is relatively peaceful. The main reason to pause here, apart from the fact it boats the best accommodation in the area, is to see the collection of ancient petroglyphs in a boulder-strewn field on the outskirts, where you’ll head with your guide around late afternoon, when the low sunlight accentuates the rock etchings.