On opening the door to our yurt this morning a chicken scurried in. Unsurprisingly it seemed to prefer laying eggs on warm duvets rather than the cold pasture, but we were less enamoured in case guano was also deposited. So, during breakfast, Yusup chicken-proofed our yurt with a chair.
Timur, JC and I headed off for an explore. We headed up towards the mountains which took longer than we'd expected - distances were hard to judge. The birds soared over us even though we weren't sure what they were (Timur didn't know either). I am seriously failing on the flora and fauna ID.
Timur was walking us up a route he'd often walked, but JC wanted to investigate a small valley "just to see where it went". So we walked up an increasingly narrow ravine (arm swinging in full motion here) which popped out by a waterfall Timur usually walked to. He, at least, was back on home ground.
Pretty alpine flowers as ever.
We then decided to ascend the nearby hill and had amazing views across the valley at 3460 m above MSL. Timur had never climbed this before so we named it JC's Peak (movie here).
We found a rock window through which you could see Song Kul. Being out of the wind it doubled up as a perfect lunch spot.
On descending, we found what looked like a scary 6 cm long slug, but was actually the caterpillar of a hawk moth. Fierce - and not something I'd like to find in my sleeping bag.
The flowers continued to enthrall me, even though I've now given up trying to name them.
We watched a horseman herd his sheep. The sheep are white, brown and black and look like a box of chocolates swarming across the hillside.
As we neared our camp we came across a group of men playing kok boru, defined by UNESCO as a 'intangible cultural heritage' game. We'd wanted to see this as part of the World Nomad Games which were being held in Kyrgyzstan on one of the weeks we were there. We'd considered building it into our itinerary, but it would have taken half a week out, and we had too many other things we wanted to see. Anyway, this game was 5 on 5 and the aim is to scoop up the ulak (a headless sheep/goat carcass stuffed to make it ~30 kg - but the legs were left on to make it easier to scoop up) and drop it in the goal, which was a well made of car tyres. Some action is here.
It was a very rough game with lots of horse-barging as the men wrestled the ulak off each other. Added to the apparent chaos of the game were numerous dogs rushing around the horses’ feet barking. Of course it wasn’t a free for all as the ref kept things in check.
Back at the camp I lazied on the bench, wrapped up warmly, and opened my book for the first time this holiday.
I then had the best treat ever. Knowing that we were on the road for 6 days before seeing a shower again, Yusup had negotiated use of their sauna for me. The sauna was inside a tin shed and lined with wood panels. It's the one on the left with the steam coming out ;-)
The oven, fuelled by wood, was fired up and heated a vat of water. There was also a tub of cold water. I was provided a bucket and a smaller plastic tub to pour water over myself. The room was beautifully warm and dousing myself in hot water warmed me beautifully. I felt in heaven.
Below is a photo of the kitchen, with the host's parents sitting outside. The family produced some nifty dishes from this little room. The chimney got blocked at one stage and one of the teenage boys scampered onto the roof to fix it. All the teenagers had jobs - the girls looked after the younger children and helped with the food. The boys chopped wood, kept fires going and even pumped up car tyres using a foot pump. You fix everything yourselves up here.
The wind picked up and was bitingly cold. We scurried into our beds (avoiding the dodgy mattress) and they actually put coal in our oven to try and heat the yurt. It made little difference.
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