Happy Canada Day!!

So it's been quite a while since we last updated, so use that as a warning for the lenght of the following. Since we last wrote there has been 6 days each having enough going on to fill an entry alone. First there was "Too hot to do anything day", followed by "Return to Ala Archa, and the search for the waterfall day", next came the "Holy crap I can't believe it is raining day", which was followed by "Oh my ass day", which preceeded the "No discount for you day", and that leaves us with today "What a better way to celebrate Canada Day then by visiting entire museums dedicated to the Communist creator Lenin day". Pictures will be added later today or tomorrow.

Too hot to do anything day.

We had great plans for this day, send a box of stuff home, go visit some musuems, and people watch in the center of Bishkek. None of which actually ended up occuring. We started the day later than we planned to, as per usual in Bishkek, and went to Fatboy's for brunch. After brunch we dragged our box over to the post office. Where believe it or not all the documents and information was in Kryg and French?? It doesn't really make sense, did the French sneek in here sometime during the Great Game was been played out by England and Russia, or where they the first country in after 1991, or did the Kryg people just decide they needed another language to put on the form to fill up the paper and choose French? Either way we were very confused when the lady wrote on our box that we needed the Poise, which wasn't in our Russian dictionary. Only after we found a lady who weighted our box did we relize it, should have realized it earlier from the documents. Anyways it turned out to send the parcel home would cost almost $200 Can. by air, and $120 Can. by ground (not recommended as many ground parcels go missing). We thought this was really expensive, and over twice the cost to send my parent's 20kg carpet home from Kashgar in China. Also I think it is crazy to spend more on shipping then the contents of the box are worth, so we drag the box onwards. We also tried DHL but they were $178 US, which we also said no to. After doing this for the better part of 2 hours the temperature was pushing 40'C, and all further plans went the way of an ice cream left outside (melted away into nothing). We spent the rest of the day lying half naked in our apartment with the fan on full blast watching a whole lot of V TV and The National Geographic Channel, with the odd half hour of CNN or BBC. We barely made it to the Italian place for dinner, and thought it was closed when we got there since everyone was hiding inside to avoid the heat. Sara has laid her foot down and said "40'C is just stupid hot, I never want it to be that hot again!"

Return to Ala Archa and the search for the waterfall day

We thought that it would be a good idea to try and escape the heat by heading to the mountians. So we decided to get up early and go to Ala Archa for the day this time equipped with a map in order to find the waterfall we missed the last time. A little before noon we had finished our brunch at Fatboy's and were ready to find a taxi to take us up into the park. Fatboy's was kind enough to once agian help us with this arrangement. We where up at the starting point to the hike at 12:45 and agreed to be back by 6:45, which we thought would be plenty of time to go find this waterfall. It was hot here too, not quite 40'C but well over 30'C, and within minutes we had stripped off all the clothes we could and the bag's zippers felt the strain of raincoats, longsleeve shirts, bottoms of pants, a lunch, water, and the ever necessary assortment of sprays, pills, lotions, and band-aids. The trail climbed quickly out of the valley on a barren sloop except for the grass, an odd rose bush, and other wild flowers. Sara was crampy again, which isn't her fault, but made progress slow. (Sara: At least i went, i could have not gone .. how many people like to hike when you feel as if somone is gutting you? So i give myself a standing ovation!!!) Whatever your thoughts are on the matter, it was slow progress under a blazing sun. I would stop and take photos (which sara found to be annoying) but it was my way of not getting annoyed for her pace. (Sara: Can you tell that we quarreled about this for a bit? haha) We made it just short of the waterfall by lunch time (2:30pm), I wanted to eat at the waterfall, but since we were not seeing eye to eye, and with low blood sugar Sara gets kinda scary we stopped just short but within sight of it. (Sara: you notice how its always me thats the issue.. someone throw me a frickin bone here!!! For having hiked once in my life in Canada to having hiked here a bazillion times overseas i think i win the nolble peace prize here!!!) Peace prize for what? Hiking is hiking, but lets get on with the story here, before someone gets fired for reading this for too long, or misses breakfast. For lunch we enjoyed bread with a Turkish Nutella knockoff, that may taste better than Nutella, but I'd never come right out and say that. After lunch we made our way up to the waterfall which was little more than a piss of water falling not all that far (the entire waterfall could fit in the camera frame standing 10 feet away, and you could walk right up and touch the rock behind the waterfall by reaching through the waterfall and get no more then your forarms wet). The only thing to note is that somehow water got into my watch, so while the watch still worked you had to read the time through droplets of water. Sara had a nap for a hour while I continued to climb up the trail towards the glacier, but an hour wasn't enough time to reach the glacier. Next time. We headed down and were about halfway back when the skies opened up for a hail storm. (Sara: this is the part when i was really getting annoyed with the constant picture taking, it was hailing and hes still taking photos, i think im going to have to start carrying the camera.. but the rain coats held off well, which i was interested in seeing how they would do). In my defense, the hail had knocked all the dust out of the air, the sun was still shinning even when the hail and thunder was coming down, and the mountains and rainbows where magnificant, not to meantion the evening light by this time. Either way, I stopped taking photos because the memory card was full,(sara: I wonder why the memory card was full.. hmmmm?) and we made it down to the car by 6:30pm just as the rain stopped. We both napped on the car ride back into town, and enjoyed a beer with dinner.

Holy crap I can't believe it's raining day

So we woke up and I (its sara writting now) was expecting blistering heat and was getting myself prepared to get ready to go to kochkor... ok wait thats a lie.. we first stayed in bed till 11, with hopes of getting up at 9.. i am really good with shutting off the alarm before Tyson realizes it and therefore i can sneak at least another hour of sleep in, and then if he does wake up.. and says "Oh we gotta go and get ready to leave" I just turn on the TV for him and that gives me AT LEAST another hour or 2... im so good at this game. (Tyson: it is a mean game, and it effects your ability to eat breakfast) everyone knows that i like to sleep so in my defense im on vacation and i sleep at home when im on vacation. Anyways.. after finally getting up Tyson looked outside and said.. its raining out.. Im not even kidding i almost peed my pants when i looked and yep it was raining.. i was dancing for joy!!! My prayers had been answered or somebodys prayers anyways.. i was so excited to get outside that i had laid my clothes out and got my rain jacket all prim and proper to wear.. it was a glorious day!!! The rain felt amazin and i was seriously contemplating staying in Bishkek to enjoy the rain before going to Kochkor. But we decided to get moving and skip breakfast, go to a store and get some fruit and bread and chocolate and an ice tea and find a taxi to take us to Kochkor (because like i said in previous blogs, im so done with minibuses and puke) (Tyson: the reason we decided to skip a meal was that we needed to get a day trip organized that evening from Kochkor, and were unsure as to when the agents closed, so we wanted to arrive before 5pm) We got a taxi to the market where you can get a relatively cheap taxi to bargin with to go places you want to to. When we first arrived this man was like "1000 som take you to kockor" , we were like ok, lets see this guys car.. so we went accross some lanes of traffic dodging cars like bullets (more like Frogger) and got to this guys car.. which was JAM packed with people, bags and other stuff.. i looked at Tyson with the many great facial expressions that im sure i have had during this trip and said "no way in hell im getting in that car, our bags wouldn't even fit anyways they would have to strap them to the roof" (Tyson: the car was a VW stationwagon with an extra row of seats in the trunk (7 seats plus the driver, 5 seats already filled with 7 people (5 adults 2 kids, plus luggage already overflowing from the much reduced trunk)) So as Tyson is good at reading my looks now.. it only took him about 1.5months into this trip haha and realized that if i get in this car.. im going to lose my girlfriend so we said no thank you.. plus i wouldn't pay 1000 som for that ride.. more like 10 som. SO we played frogger again to get to the other side to find a new taxi driver. We found a nice man who took us to Kochkor at a nice speed, i still hate driving here though. We got into Kochkor about 4-4:30 pm and found this B&B that was recommended to us by an expat working in the area. The B&B was excellent, the guy who greeted us spoke excellent english and was very helpful in finding us day options we could do from Kochkor. There was 2 options really, 1) go to song kol lake which was 2 hour drive, a ridiculous price for the car to take you there, and then once you are there you can hike a bit, or horse ride or whatever, and 2) Hike up to this smaller lake which was about 10 minutes to the village where you would start your hike the hike would be a long day we figured about 20 km each way (we didnt realize that at the time but when we got back we figured it out). So we talked it over and i really left the decision but to Tyson because i didn't want to be the bad monster in not letting him get his fullfilment of the mountain scenary. (Tyson: That is sara being mean in saying that both looked the same to her. We decided on the smaller lake because if it was still raining tomorrow the smaller valley would give better views still in the rain, and it was cheaper, and we'd already been to two large lakes that are surrounded by large mountains (Namsto Lake Tibet, and Karakol Lake near Kashgar). So the final decision was that we would ride a horse up to the lake, and then hike back down. We then decided that we would like dinner at 7 pm at the B&B and then we went for a walk to look for handicrafts and carpets. Most places were closed for the day so we just went back to the guest house and waited for dinner. Dinner was amazing, i was worried about what it would be like, but it was sooo good. We had this pasta soup with carrots and potatoes and onions, cucumber and tomatoe salad, and some fried potato thing with sauce it was delicious, there even was PICKLES!!! But after not having a pickle for so long i had a few bites but i just didnt think it tasted as good as bricks pickles that we have at home.. none the less the meal was fantastic and i ate it all.. After dinner we had a SERIOUS game of chess. It wasnt that serious, i lost and decided that i did not want to hurt Tysons feelings if i were to play for real in the next game and so we headed to bed early. We were to start our day tomorrow at 6:30 am sharp for breakfast, and 7:00 am departure time.

Oh my ass day

We sluggishly got up, and proceeded to the dinner table for breakfast. It was crepes and bread with the delicious homemade jam. They have the best homemade jam in this country!!! The crepes were so good i don't even think i took a breath when i inhaled them. After breakfast we got into the car and made our way to the village to meet our guide and our horses. I have never been on a horse before so i was a little nervous, and Tyson hasn't ridden since he was a kid. We were both a little scared because of what happend to Tysons mom on a horse, but we figured we would do it anyways. So we got on our horses got our whips and headed off for the long journey. At first we rode really slow, because we didnt know any better, the guide kept trying to tell us how to say the word for "faster or something .. something to make the horse go anyways"... it was either, Cho, chew, cha, cho cho, chai, somewhere along the lines. After trying to whip the horses which wasn't working that well either, i figured that kicking it with my heels made my horse go faster. At first for the first 3 hours, it was fun, it was really nice to see the scenary from on a horse rather then always looking at the ground to see where im walking when hiking. It was soo peacful, really majistic and tranquil. (Tyson: the scenry was very different than our previous hikes as we were know in Central Krygyzstan which lacks any vegitation larger than a rose bush. Also the horses were in good shape and responded well to directions but not always so well to requests to go faster. Mine didn't like walking on rocks while Sara's disliked walking through water) We saw many Kryg Platapuses as Sara calls Marmots. I know they are not platupuses i just like calling them that.. for fun. They are cute though, there was even some baby ones. Anyways we stopped for a bit to rest, at this point we were feeling fine, nothing hurt all was well. The lake was very far, we had to ride high and over an old terminal moraine. At this point things were starting to hurt a little from the trotting and my body jolting up and down. But then we saw the lake. It was nice, fairly big. We kept on going for a bit before we got over half way around the lake when i turned to Tysons asking i thought we were stopping at the lake and walking back down.. he just shrugged his shoulders and said lets see where the guide takes us. After we had passed some Yurts and got past the lake, even Tyson was wondering where we were going and asked the guide, who said to a "yurt" .. at this point im thinking hmm.. we already passed like 10 yurts.. which yurt are you taking us to? Finally after crossing a larger river, and riding for the better part of 5 hours we got a yurt where we were graciously greeted by a "shepards life family" this is the organization we had booked our tour from it helps Krygz families and the tourist buisness. The family was very nice and kind and fed Tyson lunch, i didnt want any i was apprehenisive about what it was, but i did have some bread an jam. Except this bread tasted like Indian nan bread and it was the best tasting bread we have had since being here. (Tyson: the meal was pressure cooked potatoes, carrots and spring onions, which also tasted amazing, second in best food since the last yurt meal beside Karakol lake) If i woul have known it was potatoes and such, i would have had some but i had a fear it was going to be sheeps eye and friend mutton.. (you should know by know that you always get potatoes) IT says in the lonely planet guide that yurt people eat mutton and i dont want mutton or sheeps eye! (but how right has the LP been about really anything in Krygyzstan?) True true! Anyways after Tysons second helping of lunch it was 2:00pm and we decided to take the horses down because we figured it would takes us at least 5-6 hours to walk back down that maybe we could get our horses running and it would be faster. Getting on the horse the second time to go back down did not feel so well. Our bums were hurting by this point already and our legs. But we managed to be ok for about an hour then the real pain kicked in. The trotting hurt like a son of a B!!!!!!!!!!! The trick was to try and get the horses to gallop which hurt the least, but often instead of galloping it would be a steady or rather unsteady trot. Long story short, we got back around 7:30 pm to the village, i had to get off my horse for the last half an hour due to realizin that i could probably walk faster then the speed i was on my horse and came to the sense that self inflicting pain just is not fun anymore. Everything hurt, it felt like i had just played 3 tournaments back to back to back of Ultimate frisbee. (Tyson: by this point even walking on the horse hurt, especially since it would stop every 5 seconds to eat, so for the last 15 minutes I got the thing trotting (no running left) as fast as I could which hurt soo much but it was over sooner...) I arrived last and in much pain. We paid our guide, thanked him, and now i can cross riding a horse till the seat of my pants caught on fire around mountains for 12 hours off my list of things to do before i die. Still need to get to Hawaii though. Our guide "apparently" tried to call a taxi for us to get us back to kochkor, but he said no taxi only my friend.. how convienent.. and how convienet that it only costed us 100 som to get to the village, but his friend wanst 120 som to take us back.. being really tired and sore i just wanted to get back so 120 it was, he wasn't budging for 100. (Tyson: The cool thing was that the guy's friend drove a Lada, an old one at that. What a bare bones vehicle, I noted the only extra was that every seat in the car had it's own ash tray!!) We got back to the guest house and waited for dinner, it was a good dinner again however we were so tired we could barely eat, i thought i was going to fall alseep in my pasta dish. We headed to bed at 8:30 pm with half eaten dinners and slept the night away, except you know when you have been in a moving thing for too long, like at an amusment park, or on a trampoline and you feel that motion when you close your eyes, that was my entire night of feeling like i was on the damn horse still so falling asleep was hard. We also ran into that crazy canadian girl that we met in Karkol, she was thinking of coming back to bishkek with us the next day but opted out to stay another day in kochkor.

No Discount for you day!

We got up and after breakfast of talking to our Crazy Canadian friend, went off in search of carpets. Found the store we where looking for which had lots of selection, and we proceeded to pick out all the ones we thought looked good before narrowing that pile down to a few goods ones. We picked out a number of carpets and thought that we could get a good deal, since we had picked out more than 2. Not for us, as the shop owner was out of town and this lady was unable to give deals, how convient (as Sara would say). Since the listed prices were already better than the other shop in town and a steal compared to the prices in Bishkek not to meantion the selection we decided what the hell we only live once. Unfortunetly we did not have enough som to make the purchase and no where in town would take visa, mastercard, debt, traveller cheques, but there was half a dozen internet cafes, does that make any sense. Since it was Saturday just before noon all the banks were closed (both of them) to change US dollars, and it wasn't apparent when or if they were going to reopen for the day. So we found a shrewd old women in a conveince store who would give us a 1 som/US dollar better rate then the CBT office (tourist office). Well 1 som better on $50 dollar bills, 0.5 som better on $20 dollar bills. We were quite unhappy that the rate was different because our bills are brand new, but whatever.. So we loaded up on another huge bag of soveniours that we'll be dragging across Asia for a while. We then found a taxi to take us back to Bishkek, went back to the B&B, got the rest of our bags and headed for Bishkek a little to fast. Luckly when we asked the driver to slow down he did so, so much so that he stopped for a 30 minutes break at a truck stop type place. Once back in Bishkek we got our apartment back and enjoyed our return to the Italian resturant (we've planned out what we are going to eat each night for our last three nights here).

What a better way to celebrate Canada Day then by visiting museums dedicated to Lenin (or something like that) day

We got up relatively early for us in Bishkek. I washed my canadian hat because it was filthy and i figured it should be spik and span for canada day. We got up and decided that we would go for breakfast/lunch go to the musuems and write a really long blog. We also put on all of our canadian stuff, bracellets and things to hand out to people, such as the waiters at the italian restaurant and at fatboys because they see us the most. The museums were interesting, it would have been nice to been able to read some russian, but none the less it was a museum dedicated to Frunze, lenins side kick who grew up here. The second museum was more to lenin and other random stuff such as evolution diagrams, old pottery from china, and then pretty much a whole floor dedicated to lenin. The musuem was two floors the first was the history of the Krygz people from the stone age until the height of thier nomadic society (around the same time the Russians came in). The second floor was all Lenin, there Sara I know you want to go eat, but lets say it so it makes a thread of sense. We haven't eaten in 6 hours im hungry so to make things short, musuems good, watching kids and adults play in a water fountain was fun, and now writing this blog has taken to much time, so we must go and get a beer with dinner and celebrate canada day with some calazones , beer, and dessert!!!!!