19 and 20 June – Altyn Arashan to Diety Orgus (Kyrgyzstan)

Gaz 66 trucks on the way down the mountain

Cold noodle stall in the market

Thursday morning (19 June) we left for Karakol again to change over to the truck, do some shopping and then move on to Diety Orgus (Jeti–Oghuz), at an altitude of 2100 metres. It was only a two hour drive but the latter part off the road was more of a track and at the wooden bridges we had to get off the truck and walk across them. 

Crossing a wooden bridge

After dinner that night it rained and with the cold was very miserable. It was lucky that a fire had been started before the rain otherwise people would have gone to bed rather early. The following morning most of the group went walking further up the valley, I went wandering down the valley, having told those on the truck that I would only be an hour (it was more than three hours before I returned), followed the road we arrived on ending up walking up a different valley then crossing a peak to look down on the Diety Orgus canyon.

Looking up the valley

Across the valley

Banned wood cutting did not bother him, he had to live.

 

Mrs. Woodcutter

The family's horses

A yurt on the mountain

Inside the yurt

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Returning down the valley towards the river I stopped and talked to some people who were sitting on a rug out in the sun, playing cards so I thought. They were all drinking vodka, an offer of which I declined. Walking away from them I was called back and invited to a family meal. There was no meat but cold salads, different types of breads, tea in plenty, sweets and biscuits. They were drinking vodka with the meal so I accepted a glass of schnapps to be polite, and it had to be drunk in one go.

The family drinking vodka

The girls (18 years of age) who want to be a doctor, dentist, teacher and press reporter

Invited to the meal

The women's side of the table

Clothes washing has to be done whenever possible so today, camping by the side of a river, washing was possible. A bucket and a river go well together even if the water temperature is close to zero being fed from a melting glacier.

As soon as I had finished the washing it started to rain, but no-matter, the clothes were hung on a tree limb hoping they will dry by tomorrow when we leave here for Kochkor.

I could not figure out where the sun came from as the sky at the end of the valley, where the sun was setting, was black