Across enter Rolling enter Steppes enter plus
Naryn, Kyrgyzstan, June 18
I spent most of the last week on a horseback trip along the Jazy and Naryn rivers, and across a 12,000-foot pass.
My companions were Gilles, a Frenchman I had met in Osh, and Laurens, a Belgian woman who had previously met Gilles. They both speak better English than I do French, but I tried to speak to them in French whenever possible in order to practice. On June 11 we took the local bus from Osh to Ozgon and then further east to the small town of Ak-Terek, where we were supposed to be able to find our guide for the trek. Unfortunately, the name we had been given turned out to be the name of a nearby national park, but a bit of asking around soon located the person we needed. We had thought the price list was settled, but this also proved not to be the case. However, after 45 minutes or so we had agreed upon a price of around $27 per day per person.
I took advantage of the remaining daylight to go on a hike in the surrounding mountains, and I wore short sleeves for the first time on the trip. Naturally, I had an allergic reaction to one of the plants I brushed up against, and developed a nasty-looking red rash with welts on my left arm. It didn't hurt or itch, though, and it's all better now.
When I returned around 7 pm, I discovered our guide was attempting to renegotiate the price, claiming to have just discovered (a) that he'd have to get back to Ak-Terek and this would take three days for which he deserved to be paid, (b) that he'd need to buy another horse, and (c) that he'd have to hire somebody else to come along and look after the horses. These struck us as problems any reasonable and/or experienced person would easily have anticipated (and we knew our guide had been leading trips for at least three years), so we declined to pay any more. We did agree to pay 10% of the total in advance for purchase of supplies.
In the course of the negotiations, I again was glad I had picked up my HP 32S calculator at the last minute before leaving. It has a 12-digit display with big numbers that are easy to read, and an intimidating array of math functions on the keys. And since nobody in Central Asia knows about Reverse Polish Notation, only I can make it work (The calculator has no "=" key--to do 5 divided by 3, you press 5 enter 3 divide). I have found it very helpful in all kinds of financial dealings.
Our first two days on horseback (June 12 and 13) were slow and easy riding along a road, with cars and occasional buses passing by. As the only tourist with any riding experience (maybe 12 hours total during the riding lessons I took a couple of years ago), I was assigned the balkiest and most difficult animal. His name was Tagon, and he wouldn't do much without being whipped fairly frequently.
We passed through several villages, and the local kids all came out to stare. I found myself strangely compelled to tip my hat to everyone we passed, a gesture the Kyrgyz do not practice but seem to be familiar with. Both nights we camped by farmsteads, and our guides bought milk, cream, and butter. The milk was often fresh enough to be still warm. Our guide was named Jengish (as in Jenghis Khan), and his assistant was an older man named Jamolka (one of Jenghis' companions). Jamolka always wore a tall white Kyrgyz hat, and chain-smoked Russian cigarettes.
The third day (June 14) was a lot harder. We began by ascending a canyon along a swift stream. The path was narrow and often very steep, and I tried not to think about the legendarily poor depth perception of horses. We had to ford the stream a few times, and our horses often had to feel around for good footing. But nobody fell. Around midday, we saw what appeared to be a wolf, although even through my binoculars I didn't get a good enough look to be sure it wasn't a dog. After our usual midday siesta of two hours or so, we pressed on to Shulbuly Pass (3878m according to an old Soviet map I saw later).
Everything went reasonably well until we were above the snow line, and my horse fell on some icy rocks. I reacted as I had been taught, yanking my foot out of the stirrup on the downward side of the horse and jumping clear. I wasn't scared until afterwards, when I began thinking about how bad it would have been to have a crushed ankle so far in the mountains. It would have been at least a couple of days to any sort of medical treatment, and our first aid kit was very rudimentary. After the fall, we walked our horses the remaining 15 minutes or so to the crest of the pass. A cloud had blown in, and visibility was down to 50 yards or so. There was a great view of the boiling clouds overhead as we descended to our campsite. The weather was awful all night, with high winds and hail. How the horses dealt with it I can't imagine, but they seemed fine the next morning. Gilles' tent did not fare so well: one of the poles had broken. But the fabric had not torn, and we stayed dry.
Our fourth day (June 15) we followed the valley of the Naryn river eastwards. There were awesome Marlboro Country views the whole way, and we also saw several large eagles. The area we rode over clearly was grazed every year, but the cows had not yet been moved up this high. When we stopped, Gilles managed to get the tent to work with shortened poles, removing the broken section. Still, we were very happy that the night was dead calm.
After seeing no roads, houses, or other sign of sedentary civilization for two days, we reached a road on our fifth day (June 16) after passing several summer grazing camps. Jengish and Jamolka stopped to talk to everyone we passed, and the kids always crowded around. In many cases, the herders were grandparents and grandchildren, with the kids' parents off working elsewhere. Just about all the children were wearing baseball caps.
After a longer-than-usual afternoon ride, we stopped at the camp of some of Jengish's friends, and we stayed the night in their yurt. We had fresh koumiss (fermented mare's milk, about 2% alcohol) with our dinner of rice and mutton. Kyrgyz have two cultural similarities with Jews: the men tend to wear their hats even inside, and they sometimes express displeasure by saying "oy". I didn't notice any other points in common, though. The yurt was pretty crowded with at least 10 people sleeping in it, and the little kid sleeping next to me kept elbowing me in the face.
Around 2 am I had to go to the latrine outside, which turned out to be a good thing since night sky was awesome: the weather was completely clear and there were no lights anywhere. Something seemed strange about the view, and after 20 minutes or so I realized there were no airplane lights in the sky--I hadn't seen a plane since the start of the trek.
The final day (June 17) began with a bit of unpleasantness when our guide tried to convince us to take a car from the camp to our destination rather than riding (this would let him get the horses back a day early). But soon after we set off, and it was a great ride all day. We had become used to our horses, and several times we galloped together across the rolling steppe. Around 2 pm we got to Ak-Beyit, which consists of about three houses. We stopped at one of them, had lunch, and paid our guides. As we were walking around stretching our legs, I noticed that Gilles had a sort of exaggerated John Wayne-style swagger. I was about to say something to him about it in French, but then I noticed I was walking the same way after six days of riding.
We had planned to flag down a bus into Naryn, since it's on one of the main roads leading to the border crossing into China at the Torugart pass. But since it was Saturday, the border was closed. However, we were able to hire a driver to take us to Naryn for a reasonable amount. The drive took about four hours with several breakdowns due to an intermittent carburetor problem and one flat tire. Naryn seems like a pleasant enough place, but all three of us are planning to move on to Lake Issyk-Kul. Most likely we'll head there tomorrow.
I spent most of the last week on a horseback trip along the Jazy and Naryn rivers, and across a 12,000-foot pass.
My companions were Gilles, a Frenchman I had met in Osh, and Laurens, a Belgian woman who had previously met Gilles. They both speak better English than I do French, but I tried to speak to them in French whenever possible in order to practice. On June 11 we took the local bus from Osh to Ozgon and then further east to the small town of Ak-Terek, where we were supposed to be able to find our guide for the trek. Unfortunately, the name we had been given turned out to be the name of a nearby national park, but a bit of asking around soon located the person we needed. We had thought the price list was settled, but this also proved not to be the case. However, after 45 minutes or so we had agreed upon a price of around $27 per day per person.
I took advantage of the remaining daylight to go on a hike in the surrounding mountains, and I wore short sleeves for the first time on the trip. Naturally, I had an allergic reaction to one of the plants I brushed up against, and developed a nasty-looking red rash with welts on my left arm. It didn't hurt or itch, though, and it's all better now.
When I returned around 7 pm, I discovered our guide was attempting to renegotiate the price, claiming to have just discovered (a) that he'd have to get back to Ak-Terek and this would take three days for which he deserved to be paid, (b) that he'd need to buy another horse, and (c) that he'd have to hire somebody else to come along and look after the horses. These struck us as problems any reasonable and/or experienced person would easily have anticipated (and we knew our guide had been leading trips for at least three years), so we declined to pay any more. We did agree to pay 10% of the total in advance for purchase of supplies.
In the course of the negotiations, I again was glad I had picked up my HP 32S calculator at the last minute before leaving. It has a 12-digit display with big numbers that are easy to read, and an intimidating array of math functions on the keys. And since nobody in Central Asia knows about Reverse Polish Notation, only I can make it work (The calculator has no "=" key--to do 5 divided by 3, you press 5 enter 3 divide). I have found it very helpful in all kinds of financial dealings.
Our first two days on horseback (June 12 and 13) were slow and easy riding along a road, with cars and occasional buses passing by. As the only tourist with any riding experience (maybe 12 hours total during the riding lessons I took a couple of years ago), I was assigned the balkiest and most difficult animal. His name was Tagon, and he wouldn't do much without being whipped fairly frequently.
We passed through several villages, and the local kids all came out to stare. I found myself strangely compelled to tip my hat to everyone we passed, a gesture the Kyrgyz do not practice but seem to be familiar with. Both nights we camped by farmsteads, and our guides bought milk, cream, and butter. The milk was often fresh enough to be still warm. Our guide was named Jengish (as in Jenghis Khan), and his assistant was an older man named Jamolka (one of Jenghis' companions). Jamolka always wore a tall white Kyrgyz hat, and chain-smoked Russian cigarettes.
The third day (June 14) was a lot harder. We began by ascending a canyon along a swift stream. The path was narrow and often very steep, and I tried not to think about the legendarily poor depth perception of horses. We had to ford the stream a few times, and our horses often had to feel around for good footing. But nobody fell. Around midday, we saw what appeared to be a wolf, although even through my binoculars I didn't get a good enough look to be sure it wasn't a dog. After our usual midday siesta of two hours or so, we pressed on to Shulbuly Pass (3878m according to an old Soviet map I saw later).
Everything went reasonably well until we were above the snow line, and my horse fell on some icy rocks. I reacted as I had been taught, yanking my foot out of the stirrup on the downward side of the horse and jumping clear. I wasn't scared until afterwards, when I began thinking about how bad it would have been to have a crushed ankle so far in the mountains. It would have been at least a couple of days to any sort of medical treatment, and our first aid kit was very rudimentary. After the fall, we walked our horses the remaining 15 minutes or so to the crest of the pass. A cloud had blown in, and visibility was down to 50 yards or so. There was a great view of the boiling clouds overhead as we descended to our campsite. The weather was awful all night, with high winds and hail. How the horses dealt with it I can't imagine, but they seemed fine the next morning. Gilles' tent did not fare so well: one of the poles had broken. But the fabric had not torn, and we stayed dry.
Our fourth day (June 15) we followed the valley of the Naryn river eastwards. There were awesome Marlboro Country views the whole way, and we also saw several large eagles. The area we rode over clearly was grazed every year, but the cows had not yet been moved up this high. When we stopped, Gilles managed to get the tent to work with shortened poles, removing the broken section. Still, we were very happy that the night was dead calm.
After seeing no roads, houses, or other sign of sedentary civilization for two days, we reached a road on our fifth day (June 16) after passing several summer grazing camps. Jengish and Jamolka stopped to talk to everyone we passed, and the kids always crowded around. In many cases, the herders were grandparents and grandchildren, with the kids' parents off working elsewhere. Just about all the children were wearing baseball caps.
After a longer-than-usual afternoon ride, we stopped at the camp of some of Jengish's friends, and we stayed the night in their yurt. We had fresh koumiss (fermented mare's milk, about 2% alcohol) with our dinner of rice and mutton. Kyrgyz have two cultural similarities with Jews: the men tend to wear their hats even inside, and they sometimes express displeasure by saying "oy". I didn't notice any other points in common, though. The yurt was pretty crowded with at least 10 people sleeping in it, and the little kid sleeping next to me kept elbowing me in the face.
Around 2 am I had to go to the latrine outside, which turned out to be a good thing since night sky was awesome: the weather was completely clear and there were no lights anywhere. Something seemed strange about the view, and after 20 minutes or so I realized there were no airplane lights in the sky--I hadn't seen a plane since the start of the trek.
The final day (June 17) began with a bit of unpleasantness when our guide tried to convince us to take a car from the camp to our destination rather than riding (this would let him get the horses back a day early). But soon after we set off, and it was a great ride all day. We had become used to our horses, and several times we galloped together across the rolling steppe. Around 2 pm we got to Ak-Beyit, which consists of about three houses. We stopped at one of them, had lunch, and paid our guides. As we were walking around stretching our legs, I noticed that Gilles had a sort of exaggerated John Wayne-style swagger. I was about to say something to him about it in French, but then I noticed I was walking the same way after six days of riding.
We had planned to flag down a bus into Naryn, since it's on one of the main roads leading to the border crossing into China at the Torugart pass. But since it was Saturday, the border was closed. However, we were able to hire a driver to take us to Naryn for a reasonable amount. The drive took about four hours with several breakdowns due to an intermittent carburetor problem and one flat tire. Naryn seems like a pleasant enough place, but all three of us are planning to move on to Lake Issyk-Kul. Most likely we'll head there tomorrow.
posted by jeros | 12:44 PM
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