Waterfalls, cooking, eagles and Fairytale Canyon

Good morning world! Blue skies, snow capped mountains on the other side of the lake, a cuckoo calling and a hoopoe sitting on a fence post. What more do you want? A walk down to the lake shore before breakfast set us up for the day. Lake Issyk Kul is 60km x 180km, the second largest inland lake in the world and large enough for there to be some tidal variation.

We had slept pretty well. The yurt wasn’t particularly warm but there were plenty of bed covers. Had we wanted it we could have put on the electric heater. Yes, there is electricity in the yurt🙄there are also 2 showers and 2 toilets shared between 2 yurts which are clean and the water is scalding! Each yurt sleeps 4 but we have one to ourselves and our neighbour is on her own so there are no queues! In fact this feels much more luxurious than we anticipated. There was a brief issue when we took to our beds last night as there was a power outage so we were in bed reading with our head torches for a while.

First off this morning was a drive up into the mountains to visit 2 waterfalls. The weather cooled dramatically in the 15km it took us to reach the start of the walk and it was also spitting with rain. Both waterfalls were pretty and it was nice to stretch our legs after a fairly lazy day yesterday.

On our way back to the minibus we passed a statue of Yuri Gagarin who had visited this valley. As he was a hero they put up a statue commemorating the visit to Kyrgyzstan.

Back to the camp and into the kitchen for a cooking lesson. The cook demonstrated how she makes the dough for dumplings and then we were shown how to fill and shape them ready to be steamed for 45 minutes. This is our lunch for today. The meat ones were half mince beef and half chopped onion, mixed with a little oil, salt and pepper. The vegetarian ones were chopped onion and potato.

I’m happy to report that lunch was successful! And we had a bit of down time both before and after, mostly sat in the sunshine.

This afternoon we went to visit an eagle breeder and hunter. I had some misgivings about this as my feeling was that the eagles were in captivity and that felt wrong. However we met the breeder and his young apprentice who was 14 years old and still in school, although the summer holidays have started. He had brought 2 female golden eagles with him (females are the biggest and can catch the biggest prey) and had a third at home. Usually he takes a young one from its nest having watched it for some days and knowing what it eats. He then spends lots of time with it forming a bond and you could see by the way he was stroking its beak with his nose that there was trust between them. It takes a few years to train them to hunt and once they have killed, not to eat the prey. They work together until the eagle is about 20 when she is released back into the wild so that she can breed and the population is maintained. This is difficult for both the eagle and her master and can take some time before the eagle finally finds her own way. A female eagle can weigh around 5 kilos and in the wild can eat up to 3kg in one go!

We watched them fly, 1 after a lure and the other that came to the call. Then we had the opportunity to put on Kyrgyz costume, mount the horse that had been used to drag the lure and hold the eagle. It was an opportunity I could not resist and once on the horse with the eagle on my outstretched arm I was a bit awestruck!! It was an amazing experience and one that I had never thought about having an opportunity to do. It was quite emotional. Geoff and 2 others took the opportunity too and they too found it moving.

Onto fairytale canyon, an area of clay and sand that is shaped by wind and rain that because of its soft nature is often changing. There is also evidence of tectonic movement tilting the rocks which adds to the drama of the landscape. It was quite dramatic but not the easiest surface to walk on!

Back to the yurt camp for our last night here. It really is a special place and although I wish I could stay here for longer I’m not sure what we would be able to do. I’m loving the views, the birds and the peacefulness of the place.