Hot springs are weird aren't they? One of those things where the idea of them is so much better than the reality. You're thinking "hmmm, nice warm bath" only to find there's a distracting sulphuric stench. And is that stuff floating on the surface part of the healing mineral stuff or is it part of the last person to use the last person to use the healing mineral stuff? I've been in several hot springs since I've been blogging but never seem to mention them. Almost as if I'm trying to pretend it never happened...
Anyway I'm getting ahead of myself.
Karakol was a bit of a shock to the system. After the boulevards and sculptures of Bishkek I had high expectations for Karakol. Instead it was a bit more soviet. Stray dogs and shipping containers. Mud tracks, dilapidated concrete buildings and dirty men growling at you in Russian. Almost like the Money wasn't making it out this far east.
The reason for coming to Karakol was as a base for exploring them there hills. Once again I'm about three weeks too early so the exploring is limited. But I walked up to Altyn Arashan and it was incredible. The view goes from green rolling hills to rockfalls-and-glacier river rapids to snow-capped Alpine Valley and all of it is ace. Just what I was hoping for from a Kyrgyzstan.
When you get to Altyn Arashan you find that there's just about nothing there. A few guesthouses, a handful of yurts and some hotsprings, which brings us back to the start.
I'm back in Karakol and it's sunny. Which means the roads aren't muddy, the stray men seem less like Bond Villains and somehow the shipping containers have been replaced by colourful mosques, gold-domed churches and gingerbread cottages against a snow-capped mountain backdrop.
No comments:
Post a Comment