05/21 – Scenic Drive to Bishkek

Another very long day of driving with most of it through a very mountainous area and we are hitting some very high altitudes.  There were a lot of low hanging clouds that made it hard to see much beyond the nearest hills.  We suspect that there was much to see further away.

Kyrgyzstan is a pretty mountainous country and we spent the better part of three days just driving through these mountains from Ost to Bishkek.  Sometimes it was rainy, others it was overcast with low clouds on the mountaintops and other times it was sunny and spectacular.  

There were lots of lakes, rivers and reservoirs in addition to the beautiful mountains.  And we saw lots of yurts.  The people living in these are semi-nomadic with village homes for the harsh winters then moving their livestock high into the mountain pastures during the summer...where they live in their yurts.  

We stopped at some yurts where we watched a woman use a separator to separate cream from milk.  We shared cookies with the children and were able to look into one of the yurts.  Very sparse and basic by our standards but it meets their needs.

We had a short stop at a large snow patch that was near the road.  Some of the group needed to make snow angels.

The highest pass was the Ala Bel Pass at 3175 meters (10, 417 feet) above sea level.  We made a brief stop here but there really wasn’t much to see. 

Along the route we began to see more and more yurts.  It is still early but some of the people had made it back up into the mountains.  Arsn indicated that they are a semi‑nomadic people and they will be up in the mountains by summer.  We did stop at one cluster of yurts.

The groups we saw had a lot of horses.  

There was one woman who was working a separator, separating cream from milk.

There were a number of children around so Tara spent time enjoying them and passing out Milano cookies. 

When we headed down the east side of the mountains the topography really changed.  The road was a series of switchbacks down the steep side of the mountain…no more traveling through alpine meadows.

Once we finally made it down we were on flat plains and we had good views (except for all the trees in the way) of the snowcapped mountain peaks.

We were in Bishkek by lunch time.  It was nice eating in a modern restaurant with an extensive menu.  And they had lots of fresh baked bread.

The drive from Osh to Bishkek was along the mountains on the west side of the country and then cut across to Bishkek in the north.  

Kyrgyzstan is a pretty mountainous country and we spent the better part of three days just driving through these mountains from Ost to Bishkek.  Sometimes it was rainy, others it was overcast with low clouds on the mountaintops and other times it was sunny and spectacular.  

There were lots of lakes, rivers and reservoirs in addition to the beautiful mountains.  And we saw lots of yurts.  The people living in these are semi-nomadic with village homes for the harsh winters then moving their livestock high into the mountain pastures during the summer...where they live in their yurts.  

After all the driving the last few days it was nice to take a rest in the afternoon.