Feasting in Karakol

On the 4. June we reached Karakol on the southern side of lake Issyk-Kol. Karakol was another major milestone for all. We had read about so many different outdoor activities here in the beautiful mountainous setting that we planned to stay for a full three days. 

Karakol itself was already wonderful to hang out and relax. It’s quite a laid back little town where you have to search hard for the center. Some people say it is just another standard issue Sovjet town, basically a grid of broad streets and empty squares. That's partly true, but there is quite some beauty to it. The whole town seems like an accumulation of cute little white houses with sky-blue window frames set into large compounds with old fruit trees and vegetable gardens. The wide streets are bordered by huge old trees and colorful wild flowers. We stayed in a lovely slightly outdated B&B run by a resolute but very hospitable mama who cooked fantastic goulash soup for dinner and hearty breakfast. 

The best part of course was that we arrived in time for the season of apricots, cherries and strawberries! We bought about a kilo of each on the local market and consumed all in one sitting, so super tasty were the fruits. Boris now holds a new record for the amounts of non-tined cherries consumed in one session.  

While Horst and Simon decided to go up one of the famous valleys which led to a small resort where the combination of hot springs with cold mountain streams creates a natural sauna set up, Boris and I hopped back on the bike and headed for the other famous valley to visit the famous Jeti-Ögüz rock formations and to camp further up in the valley.

On the way up we detoured to hike to a beautiful waterfall. To get there we rode to a former cosmonaut rehabilitation center set in the lovely surroundings of a lush alpine meadow. As it was Sunday many Kyrgyz families also went for an outing in their old cars and we saw happy picnic groups all along the way. We also got held up by a bunch of totally drunken forestry guys who were celebrating the World Forestry Day. Concentrating hard on their words and posture they explained their activities in the surrounding forest plantations to us and invited us to drink with them. We fortunately could escape. It would have been hard to catch up to their alcohol level not to mention to keep up with the amounts they were drinking. We passed a number of yurt camps which were being set up for the summer season and found a beautiful camping spot along the river. Here our feasting continued with roasted chicken, fresh bread, and of course another round of fresh fruit and a most classy kitschy campfire.