Arriving in Kazakhstan, I first took some days off in Almaty. As the last couple weeks with Cyril were quite intense, I couldn't really work on my blog and now I wanted to catch up. But as I wasn't used to stare into a screen for a couple days in a row anymore, I was soon ready to venture out again. :) At first I wanted to check out two major sights around Almaty: the Charyn Canyon and the Kolsay Lakes. Instead of taking a one day tour though, I decided to rent a tent and spend two nights camping in each place. As there was no public transport to either of those places, I had to find a way on my own and I can tell you already that this turned out to be quite an adventure. :) But let's start from the beginning.
Day 1 - 3: Charyn Canyon Bad weather was forecasted all over the region of Almaty and that was okay as I had planned to be in the car most of the day. But when I left the hostel early morning, it was already raining that heavily, that I was soaking wet when I arrived at the bazaar closeby to buy some food. :) Well, whatever, I had a full day to dry. Walking the rest of the way to the bus station as well, I was amazed how flooded the streets were, after just half an hour of rain. At the bus station I asked for shared taxis to Kegen, which would have been the perfect start. All the drivers turned their back on my request though and so I took a taxi to the village of Shelek instead. When I arrived there, the driver dropped me as last person at the end of the village and offered to bring me to the canyon for tremendous 40 dollars. Thanking him for the offer, I declined and to avoid starting hitchhiking at the highway, I walked a couple kilometers to the next turnoff. There I stood at the side of the street and held out my hand. It took a couple minutes and a car stopped. Wow, that was fast. :) But then I already knew that the unofficial taxi system in Kazakhstan was very efficient, as every car basically also was a taxi. Meaning, that whenever someone went into your direction, they would take you with them, either for free or for some money. The driver who stopped, only went to the next village, but I thought that was better than nothing and after agreeing on the price I hopped in accordingly. 15 minutes later I stood at the street again, repeating my gesture from before. It took half an hour this time but the next two guys were able to give me a lift right to the turnoff to the canyon. Perfect! When I asked about the price, they just laughed and shrugged their shoulders. :) They were really nice anyway and we had as good a talk as possible during the one hour ride. As friendly as the talk was the farewell and being at the turnoff now, I knew I could walk from there as it was only 10 kilometer to reach the canyon itself. Well, I got as far as one kilometer. :) Then a car drove towards me, passed me, made a U-turn, stopped next to me and three Kazakh youths were smiling at me, telling me to jump in. They were pretty excited and the other 9 kilometers to the canyon passed in a breeze, as we talked about us and the world. The driver even was so nice to pay my entry fee to the canyon, which unfortunately I only realized much much later. Arriving at the canyon, we descended right away to an outlook about half way down. As the weather was still not really nice, I decided to take pictures only tomorrow when the sun supposed to be shining. But of course I didn't pass on the chance to get the mandatory group picture. :)
With my new buddies, I descended to the bottom of the canyon and we followed a dirt road for a while. As they only paid a short visit to Charyn, they said goodbye about half way of the track and scrambled up some random slopes back to the top, while I continued further, soon reaching the Charyn river which marked the end of the trail. There was an Eco Lodge with some yurts and bungalows to stay overnight, but as I had the tent with me, I just pitched it at the designated area close to the river and spent the rest of the day with relaxing, reading and eating. What was overwhelming today, was the amount of other tourists. Even though the weather was miserable, there were loads of them and two taxis were constantly driving people from the start to the end of the canyon and back. Expecting the same of tomorrow, I looked forward to a lovely day of hiking anyway.
Yesterday evening, I had seen some guys scaling a hill next to the Eco Lodge and after my breakfast I decided that this would be a good warm up. Although there was quite some rubble along the way, going up was not too much of a problem and soon I had reached the top of the hill. It turned out that this was not the end and I was able to continue further along a ridge. At the end of the ridge, I could have gone back in a loop, but looking upwards, it seemed as I could scramble over a little cliff to another hill above. My eyes were not mistaken and climbing over the rocks I got treated to a superb outlook over the canyon. The sun was shining bright, the panorama was super stunning and the silence was absolute.
No daytrippers were in the canyon yet and that was quite a difference to my arrival yesterday. :) Another tourist came along when I was sitting there to enjoy the view, but he was quiet as well and preferred to feast his eyes on the scenery rather than starting a chat with me. That suited me perfect and except a few words we left each other alone, exploring the ridge we were on as far as possible. That was a nice warm up and back at the tent after a slippery descent, I took a little break.
Knowing that I had enough time, I packed my stuff together only at about 10.30 am. Deciding to walk up the full length of the canyon I marveled at the stunning rock formations all around me and greeted the first daytrippers on their way down.
Further up I saw some people scramble around on the ridge to my left and thought it a good idea to do that too. :) So up I went and coming upon a little hill on the ridge, it was too inviting to just pass by and I sat down for a lovely lunch with a lovely view.
Heading back to the bottom of the canyon after my midday break, I walked to the very end of it and ascended to the entrance. There I turned right and followed the track above the canyon. Passing the point where we descended yesterday, I kept on walking straight ahead. Taking my time, I was checking out some more viewpoints and all of them were super nice.
When I thought I had done it all and seen it all, I realized that it was only 3 o'clock in the afternoon. :) Well, I noticed yesterday already, that the canyon wasn't really made for hikers and now I didn't really knew what to do. There were some other parts of Charyn that could be visited, but they could only be reached by car and as you know, I was there without. Thinking of may be going to the Kolsay Lakes already, I decided against it and instead went down to the Eco Lodge again. :) I wanted to fill up my water, eat a little snack in the cafe there and in my opinion I had not been walking enough today. :) Once I had done all of that, I went back up again and was looking for a good camping spot that was overlooking the canyon. That was a rather tough challenge though, as it was either too steep, too narrow or too stony to pitch a tent. Finding a suitable spot in the end, it didn't had the panorama I had hoped for, but I enjoyed spending a second night at the canyon anyway.
Looking forward to a nice sunrise I fell asleep to a relentless wind tugging at my tent.
Due to the wind, the night was pretty uncomfortable and waking up at 6 o'clock, I had to learn that there also was no sunrise. Clouds lined the sky and the sun was nowhere to be seen. Well, no point in lingering around and off I was an hour later. Walking back to the turnoff, I actually made it the whole way this time. It was way too early yet for hitchhiking and only a couple cars passed me on my way. From the turnoff I decided spontaneously to keep on walking, as the next junction towards the lakes was only about 9 kilometers away. My intention was to stop and hold out my hand whenever a car passed by, but as the road was quite winding in this part, this turned out to be more difficult than expected. So the only car that stopped was one that came from the other direction. Two elder guys were greeting me and were asking where I came from. Seeing a beer can between the drivers legs, they answered enthusiastically at my reply that I was coming from Switzerland. :) The whole situation was pretty hilarious as we just stood in the middle of the road and it got even better when they got out of the car to take a picture with me. So there we stood, the guy with the beer hardly able to press the button on his smartphone and I wondered what all the passing cars thought about us. :) As a goodbye I got a hug, as well as a kiss on my neck and only then they let me resume my walk. :)
Day 3 - 5: Kolsay Lakes
A little bit later another car halted and took me along. The young guy even took me further than expected, but he was a greedy one and I paid way too much for that part than I actually should have. It was a stupid mistake from my side though, as the price negotiation had only been done with hands. So when the next car stopped, I took out the money in advance just to be clear on what I had to pay. :) This driver took me all the way to Saty and there I was able to stock up on food. Walking along the main street, a huge dog came towards me and while usually they let you be, he started to jump up at me and wanted to be caressed. Well, there you go buddy. When I wanted to carry on though, he started to follow me, insisting on being caressed even more. Okay, sure, just a little bit more. But as soon as I stopped caressing him again and tried to walk on, the same game started anew. I tried to shoo him away, but that turned out to be impossible. So I held him at his neck and pressed him to the ground, but instead of staying there like a good dog would do, he just turned on his back and all I could do was to pet him again. When I once more stopped stroking him, I just kept on walking this time, but apparently he was not happy about that at all, as he started to bite or at least tried to get his mouth around my arms. A dog bite was the last thing I wanted and struggling hard with the situation, I finally was able to find refuge behind the fence of the local supermarket. :) Glad I was unscathed, I just stayed in there until the dog lost his interest and left. What I had lost was precious time, but when I started my walk towards the three Kolsay Lakes, another car halted next to me and some locals were offering me a ride. One of them seemed a bit unhappy about that and when we arrived at the entrance gate, he insisted on leaving me behind and they resumed the journey on their own. Well, nevermind, as they had saved me quite some time with this short ride. From the entrance it was a walk of another 8 kilometer and with my lunch in between, I arrived at the first lake at about 3 pm. Surrounded by mountains full of trees, it was quite a sight to behold.
As the first lake was accessible by car, many other tourists were there as well and I had a nice chat with a couple guys from the Netherlands. To get to the lake, I also had to pass a military checkpoint and the officer there had told me, that because of the rain a couple days ago, the way to the second and third lake would not be passable because there was too much mud. As he didn't spoke English, I wasn't sure if I had understood correctly, so after giving it some thought I decided to try it anyway. The trail led along the first lake with some nice outlooks and I was happy that eventually I was back on a real hiking path. :) Coming to the end of the first lake, some other tourists came along and I took the chance to ask them about the condition of the path. They were on the way back from Kolsay 2 and confirmed that it was no problem to get there, just the trail would be very muddy. That was great to hear and so I continued my walk towards the second lake. The path led mostly through a forest and got muddier the further I got. Nevertheless I made good way and a couple signs at designated resting places told me how much more I had to go. A couple kilometers before the lake, I came upon the only steep ascent, which after a long day and especially with all the mud on the track turned out to be a pretty tough one.
Once the slope was behind me, it was back to the more or less gentle ascent from before and when the forest finally opened up, I knew that I had reached my destination. Like the first lake, the second one was surrounded by mountains full of trees and made for a spectacular sight. A tent on the map was marking the camping spot and arriving there, I beheld a super nice clearing with many places to pitch my tent. There were also some other campers and when my tent stood, one of them came over to say hello. He introduced himself as Wladimir, but unfortunately he spoke only Russian. His nephew Nikita came to his rescue and I learned that they were locals from Almaty, spending a couple days in the mountains. They invited me to join them at their campfire and that was what I did after I had my dinner and changed my sweaty clothes. Arriving at their camp, a third guy introduced himself as Vitali. Well, I couldn't forbore a smile. Wladimir, Nikita and Vitali. Can it get more Russian than this? :) They were super friendly though and I actually spent about three hours at their campfire. Nikita and Vitali spoke some English and after Nikita had a couple beers, his English got even better. :) I learned that Wladimir was the sportsman, doing windsurfing, trailrunning, cycling, skiing and cross-country skiing. Nikita was a student, studying oil and gas business in Tomsk in Russia. And Vitali was a Yoga teacher living and working in Almaty. The conversation we had, turned out to be rather funny. First, Vitali explained that all he needs for life is milk and sex, then they laughed about the interest rate we get from our banks (almost 0% at the moment, while in Kazakhstan it was apparently about 11%), after that they laughed at my question if they say Astana or Nur-Sultan, then they told me that people in Kazakhstan get rich either through oil, gas or corruption and in the end I learned that apparently some Kazakh people drink their tea with salt. :) It was a very entertaining evening and when I went to bed, it was past 10 o'clock already. And to answer my question above, they still say Astana. :)
Waking up after a pretty cold night, I first had my breakfast and then enjoyed the morning silence of Kolsay Lake 2. Yesterday, Wladimir and Nikita had invited me to join them in going up to the third lake. As Wladimir had been there already a few years ago and as I expected some more military in the area, I thought this to be a good idea. They took their time in the morning though and while they were swimming in the lake, eating breakfast and doing yoga, I just sat in the morning sun and marveled at the surroundings. :)
When it was about 11 o'clock, we hit the trail and first had to tackle a steep ascending slope. Wladimir and Nikita went off like the fire brigade and I struggled after them as good as possible. :) Fortunately they kept their fast pace only during this first slope. Afterwards when the trail went more or less straight ahead, they slowed down and I also had the time to enjoy the beautiful view of Kolsay 2.
The path was pretty obvious, leading along a mountainside and alternating between open fields and forests. About half an hour into the trail, we came upon a little shelter and some tents. A military officer greeted us and asked us to leave our passports behind. Having read about this before, I knew that this was the standard procedure and we would get them back as soon as we return from Kolsay 3. As the Kyrgyz border was close to the third lake, they wanted to prevent us from crossing over. Not that we intended to do that, but they just had to do their duty. Resuming our hike, we entered the woods once more and when we emerged out of it again, came upon a little junction. We took the trail to the right as the military officer had told us, even though the other path looked much more used. It led us down into a valley and we followed a stream for a little while. The path itself had been better than the day before, but now also got much muddier as the stream sometimes overflowed onto the trail. So far the walk had been gentle, but to reach Kolsay 3, one last steep ascent in the woods waited for us. Wladimir and Nikita stepped up the pace again and as I knew that we were close, I just followed in my own pace. Coming over the ascending slope we entered a plateau with Kolsay 3 unfolding in front of us. With the shining sun and the surrounding mountains, it made for a lovely scenery just like Kolsay 1 and 2.
While the others went for a swim, I took a rest and had a little snack to gain some energy. Leaving our backpacks behind, we walked around the whole lake and it was cool to behold Kolsay 3 from many different angles.
Back at our backpacks, we started to retrace our steps and I soon realized that we had been quite lucky with the weather, as the sun still had been shining when we were at the third lake. Now, being back at the military shelter, we could see a lot more clouds in the sky. As expected, the military officer handed us our passports over again and not much later we had returned to our tents at the second lake. Nikita had told me along the way, that if I wanted, I could drive with them to Almaty tomorrow. Of course I couldn't decline this offer and so I decided to stay another night at Kolsay 2 and descend to Kolsay 1 only tomorrow morning with my new friends. We were back from our hike quite early and many daytrippers still lined the shore of the lake. So I took a rest in my tent and did some work for my blog, until all the other tourists had vanished and we had the place to ourselves again. Two more campers stayed though, Philipp and Julian from Germany, and I invited them to join us at the campfire later on. So like yesterday, the fire was lit again after dinner and with Philipp and Julian joining us, we finished today with another good conversation and another good laugh. When I went to bed, it was almost 10 again and this time I was a bit better prepared for the coldness.
Nevertheless, it was once more a pretty rough night and I was glad when the alarm told me to get up. The other guys were awake as well and Vitali even had a swim already. The morning air was fresh and the sun had not reach our camping place yet, so I didn't understand how he didn't freeze to death in the ice cold water. :) Like yesterday we took our time, having breakfast first and then slowly packing our stuff together. Vitali left a bit earlier as he was not the fastest hiker, while the other two guys enjoyed another swim in the lake. For me the water was way too cold, so I sat down in the sun and enjoyed the scenery for one last time. It was interesting to see what two days without rain had done to the hiking path, as the mud on our way down was mostly dry now and my legs definitely got less dirtier this time. :) We caught up on Vitali at Kolsay 1 and of course all of them went for a swim there. About half way to the car park, one more swim was necessary and we had a good laugh as we joked that like this we will never make it back to Almaty. :)
Well, eventually we reached their car and before we packed all our stuff into it, enjoyed a break to eat a juicy melon.
They also had their bikes with them and Wladimir and Nikita decided to ride down to Saty, while I was driving with Vitali after them. Loading the other two up along the way, Nikita took over the wheel and drove us to our lunch spot at the Charyn river. Of course another swim was needed there and while I never swam in any of the Kolsay lakes, I thought that now was the time for some refreshment. So I took off my clothes and the others were all jeering, jumping into the water together with me. :) Being out of food, I witnessed once more the tremendous hospitality in central Asia, as I got treated to some fish, bread and watermelon for lunch. Wladimir took over after our little feast and drove us back to Almaty. Understandably they couldn't drive me to my hostel, so they let me out close to where they lived. Asking them if I would be allowed to give them some money for the ride, they declined right away. A discussion was useless and so we said goodbye with a hearty hug. Walking back to my hostel, I had time to think about the last days and even though one driver had ripped me off, the whole trip had been super fun and I probably would do it the same way again. :)
Highlights of the trip: the people I met, the views at Charyn Canyon and all the three Kolsay lakes
This trip is for you if: - you want to spend more time at the canyon and the lakes than just a couple hours - you're looking for not too strenuous hiking - you want to use the efficient unofficial taxi system in Kazakhstan
This trip is not for you if: - you're afraid of getting into the car of a stranger - you're short on time - you're looking for a place with not that many tourists
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