Africa, but with Mountains

I felt much closer to my Great Game roots these past few days, riding high, as I was in my saddle as we crossed the mountain passes of the Tian Shan, the very same ones traversed by the refugees, traders, and agents of intrigue passing between the relatively stable Chinese Kashgar and the tumultuous unknowns of Central Asia. I've been devouring Peter Hopkirk's "Setting the East Ablaze" which describes some of the goings on during the period immediately following the Russian Revolution in central Asia, and it is positively fascinating. Enough stuff for at least a dozen adventure movies.

Our ride, however, just 3 short days up to the mountain lake of Song Kul and back down, would probably make a movie better characterized as farce than adventure. Before even getting on the horse, upon exploring an abandoned soviet-era collective farm (the kind I just said in my previous post did not exist), I jumped off of a wall and badly sprained my foot, leaving me tottering around for the next few days. We arrived at the home of the family whose horses we were to rent, and after being fed a shepherd's meal of jam, bread, and various kinds of dairy by-products (butter, cream, congealed cream, etc.), we set out on our trek. About 20 minutes had gone by when I decided to try to put my horse in a trot, which caused by companion Robert's horse to break into a gallop, which in turn put my horse in an even fiercer gallop, and we shot out in opposite directions, leaving the rest of the group about a mile or two behind.

We eventually collected ourselves, renegotiated with the horses, and set out to climb the 1,000 meters or so up to the high mountain plateau of the exquisite Song Kol lake. Along the way, we stayed with two shepherd families sharing meals with them and sleeping with them in their felt yurts. In earlier days, entire communities would have migrated to these alpine valleys in the summer months, but today most villages choose to remain in their permanent bases in the lowlands, sending only one family up to the mountains with everyone's sheep to tend.

As we rode between yurt camps, enjoying the spectacular views of vast green hills intermittently dotted with white yurts, we passed shepherds, mostly teenage boys, on horseback idly putting their flocks out to pasture or bringing them into their makeshift pens to be bedded down for the night. The odd cow or camel made an appearance. It was gorgeous, and reminded me a lot of the empty beauty of Africa, except with massive mountains.

Our guide, Illych, the son of the family from whom we hired the horses, spoke a little English, and we were able to engage in the usual banter: which car is the best, where are the prettiest women, how much do things cost in America, and so on. We turned to how much things cost in Kyrgyzstan. How much is a horse. How much is a cow. How much is a sheep. A lamb, as it turned out, went for about 2,000 som, or about $50.

Readers who know me can probably guess where this leads. I asked if he could negotiate on our behalf with one of the local shepherds. This he did, and an afternoon of riding was exchanged for a one of butchery: we rode out, chose a lamb (or rather, we were given a black sheep), and brought it back to our camp. Our guide and his assistant skinned and carved the lamb with what can only be described as great aplomb, and the grandmother of the yurt prepared it for us in the traditional Kyrgyz manner. This, sadly, comprised of boiling the lamb with no seasoning for hours until it was recognizable only as meat. No matter, we returned from a sunset ride to a vodka-lubricated lamb feast, a bit bland, but nonetheless a welcome respite from the bread-jam-and dairy by-product meals we had for the last few days.

The Kyrygz people we met in the mountains were invariably sweet. They welcomed our "Community based tourism" with genuine hospitality. Having come from China, I was shocked that they didn't try to sell us anything along the way. I saw in them the same patience and kindness that I think can be found in the people of the sierra around the world. Maybe the temperate climate leads to temperate personalities -- I hear the Uzbeks living in the hot valleys and deserts further west are significantly different.

From Song Kol, we continued in an ancient Russian Lada north for a few hours to reach the lake of Issy-Kul, home to my roommate Karina and a sort of Hamptons vacation get-away for wealthy Kazakhs from just across the border. The roads were awful (another parallel with Africa) but as Illych told us before we parted "Bad Road, Russian Car, No Problem".