Day 16: Almaty to home (via Seoul)

It's hard to believe that its been two weeks and that in a few short hours we will be heading for home. It is always fun to travel and explore, but I have to admit that by this point in the trip, I'm always excited about the prospect of getting home.  This has been a difficult trip, with long days, extreme heat and some very terrible beds, so I'm looking forward to getting home to my creature comforts.

We wake up late today. It was a luxurious sleep. The Holiday Inn isn't fancy - but it does have comfy beds with lovely duvets.  We begin the packing process, but we have all day here as our flight doesn't leave until super late.  We have a late checkout from our room, so we can finish up the packing later.

We gather those that are awake and head out to our fave place...yes...the Big Apple for coffees and breakfast.  It doesn't disappoint. The people that work there are great. If you are in Almaty, this place is a must stop.

We hang out here for quite awhile, enjoying the space and a second coffee. Brian and Emily eventually join us and we here about the rest of their birthday festivities last night.  Sounds like they had fun! Robert eventually joins us too and once everyone is fed, we go in search of art.

On every trip, my mom and I really like to find something to take home. Something permanent that can sit in our houses to remind us of the trip.  I love looking around my living room at all the sculptures and paintings that we have gathered over the years.

I had found a clay making studio and so we head in that direction.  Emily and Brian head off on their own for a day of sightseeing.  They weren't with us at the beginning of the trip, so this is their one day to see the city.

The clay making studio is lovely - and I fall instantly in love with a very abstract bull sculpture that is in my colours! The artist is in the studio teaching, and we meet him and grab a photo. Mom buys this for me as an early birthday present.  He is going to look fabulous in our dining room!

Mom doesn't find anything, and the girls have had enough, so Dave takes our bull and the girls back to the hotel while Erik, Robert, mom and I go in search of a small art gallery that I've found online.  We wander through back streets and alleys in search of this place and finally stumble upon it.  It's a small gallery, featuring a local artist. His technique is thick oil paintings - with texture and lots of colour. I love his work and mom seems to as well as she buys a small painting showing a park scene in Almaty. Fitting - as the parks in this city are fantastic. The colours are reds, oranges and browns and will look fabulous in her house.

We wander away from here and decide we've worked pretty hard on this shopping stuff so should go get a drink and snack.  You'll never guess where we went - we are clearly creatures of habit. We head to our Fresco Cafe.  The thing is, when you find a good place on a trip, with good food, good drinks, a beautiful patio with lovely interior design, and which has kept you safe so far, I don't see the harm and going back! Sure, maybe not as adventurous as we could be, but we've had a lot of adventure on this trip, so I think we can be cut some slack.

We have a few appies and some drinks and then Erik, mom and I head back to the hotel. Rob decides to linger a little longer at order a hookah. Actually, we all take a quick puff before leaving him behind. It's a big thing here, I figured I'd better try it at least once!

We manage to get a ride to the hotel, and when we get there, everyone has moved into our room as its past checkout time.  It's a little cramped, but I get a nap in, and we all hang out for a bit until dinner time.  We will have one last supper before coming back to the hotel and getting taxis to the airport.

Our last meal is at a nice Japanese place, I have no idea what its called, but the decor is pretty awesome. I took a picture of the walkway to the bathroom which was like being in an outdoor garden.

We are well fed and we head back to the hotel to grab our bags and getting into the cars that we arranged through the hotel.  It's a cool night - actually, the temp in Almaty this time has been drastically lower, its actually been pleasant and although warm, manageable to walk around in without feeling like you might die.

Once at the airport we negotiate through check-in, passport control and security and then sit and wait for our flight.  The airport here isn't big or fancy, it doesn't have much to offer, and you all just sit in one big room and wait for the boarding to be called on the screen - they don't make announcements, so you'd better be paying attention.

We board the plane after a brief altercation with a pushy person. Dave and I must both be tired as we both turned and snapped at this guy as he tried to literally jam his way past us onto the plane.  Jeez buddy, we're all going to the same place! I have no patience for that kind of rudeness.

We are flying with Air Astana and we seem to be in the premium economy section and so we all get these really cool felt bags filled with a neck pillow, eye mask, ear plugs, headphones etc. Very fun, we all gear up and look pretty hilarious with 11 of us decked out.

The flight to Seoul is about 6 hours, and I try to sleep and encourage the girls to sleep too. We want to actually use our layover to visit Seoul, so we need a bit of stamina.  The stewardess on the flight also gives Avery and Fiona these super cool bags, one is camping themed, and has a rolled up blanket in the outside flap, a compass, a watch and some other stuff. The other one is super hero themed and has a mask and armbands and even a cape that comes out of the backpack! So fun and provides them with some entertainment.

Once we land in Seoul, we say goodbye to Wendy and Bruce, they have seen Seoul so aren't joining us, and we head for passport control.  It's a very interesting system, they make everyone come up one at a time and I can tell they don't really want me coming up with all three girls, but I do anyways, it seems weird to send a child through passport control on their own.  We explain we are only here for a few hours and they let us through. 

Robert is staying in Seoul a few extra days, and the rest of us will just tag along with him into the City, look around a little then head back.

The airport is at least an hour away from downtown Seoul.  It's a Sunday, which we are grateful for, as the traffic is very light. We hire a large van with driver at the aiport to take us all into the city, and he agrees to come back and pick us up and hour and a half later to take us back to the airport.  We only have a short time, so we need to be very efficient.

The drive takes us an hour, and we get dropped off at the Gyeongbokgung Palace. Unfortunately its raining off an on, but the temperature is warm.  We are all basically zombies anyways. We will take what we an from this experience. 

Emily had some reading and we chose the neighbourhood near the Palace as one that would interesting to explore.  We walked around the little side streets and I was really pleasantly surprised. The architecture is really interesting here. A real mix off old and new.  There isn't much open and the rain is starting to come down harder, so after walking around for awhile, we duck into a noodle place for some yummy noodles in broth and some dumplings. The owners are so nice and its delicious and so comforting on a rainy day.

Before we know it, its time to go meet our driver. We had said our goodbyes to Robert before the noodle place, so its just the 8 of us now.  We are quiet the drive back. The three girls fall asleep in the back of the van.  I wasn't sure I would want to come back to Seoul, but after seeing it, it might need to be given another opportunity down the road.

Back at the airport we head through security again and head up too the lounge.  I have a shower again, devine! I'm really hoping I can get some good sleep on this next flight.

We head to the gate and there is some issue with our bags.  They had checked them through to Vancouver for us in Almaty, but apparently I was supposed to know that I was on the flight to Vancouver or else they would pull them off. Weird! We get that straightened away and they put our bags back on. 

We board the plane, get settled into our seats,  and before we know it, we are up up and away. Home is just a few hours away now.

Day 15: Karakol to Almaty via Cheryn Canyon

We were up early early today. The hotel put on a beautiful breakfast for us of crepes and fresh fruit etc. Much more than we were expecting. Our driver and guide arrived and we loaded up and headed out. 

Bruce and Wendy had gone to get the boxed lunches late last night and it had apparently really thrown them off just before closing. They were able to make us 11 boxed lunches...which was great - so we were set for the day.

We left the city and wound through the coutryside.  I had expected that the roads wouldn't be great on this side of the border, as they hadn't been great along the lake towards Karakol, but I was quite shocked that they were as bad as they were.  There were sections that were gravol and generally the pavement was pitted and winding.  This made the going very slow.  I couldn't comprehend why the drive to Almaty could take upwards of 9 hours, but it was becoming quickly apparent. 

We sat back and enjoyed the scenery though.  It was some of the most beautiful countryside I'd ever seen. The fields and mountains were green, and there were small Yurt camps tucked into the valleys. We passed horses and cattle and bee farms which huge containers of honey setup out front of delicious looking honey.  Too bad we couldn't bring some of that home!

As the hours past we knew we were getting closer to the border and the landscape started to stretch out around us and give way to broader fields and less vegetation.

In my mind, this border crossing would be a breeze, and it turns out this one would be our most scrupulous yet.  We had already been into Kazakhstan, however they wanted each of us, one at a time, to fill out an entry card and approach the border guard in the booth.  Nobody could fill out cards in advance, it had to be one at a time...so you can imagine how annoying I found this. Very inefficient!  I was allowed to approach with the girls all together, and they meticulously reviewed everything and stamped everything. The border guards were pleasant enough, but it was a very thorough process.  Come to think of it, I actually can't remember now what happened on the leaving side of Kyrgyzstan. I'll have to ask the group - it wasn't eventful obviously.  Once we had been processed, we were told to walk down the road (past where the van was being searched, and past the very large german shepherd) to the gate, where another guard checked our passports again and then let us out.

Robert had already been processed and he recounted how he had been asked if he had any coke or heroine.  The guard had also found a pair of gloves in his bag, and asked if he could have them. Robert didn't want to say no, so gave him the gloves. I guess I didn't look like a heroine dealer.  Neither did Emily, Wendy on the other hand...they did ask her if she had any drugs. And all the men were asked and received gestures towards their arms as they said heroine.

Finally we were all through and the van search was complete.  We were through...so now all we needed was a bathroom before we left. Not worth mentioning how horrible that experience was...off we went.

The roads were comparably better once we got through a bit of construction.  The roads were also much straighter and so our travelling speed could now be a little higher.

We reached Charyn Canyon around 11:30am. Google had told us it would take 3 hours. Maybe on good roads! The drive out to the canyon was not gravel and was very nicely paved.  We had our lunch in the picnic huts and then walked down towards the canyon edge.  Very beautiful. They call is the mini grand canyon.  If we had had more time it would have been fun to go down to the bottom and explore, but we were on a birthday mission schedule. We had 30mins on the clock to spend here. Time for some pics, a quick look and then off we went.

The rest of the drive was uneventful, and the landscape was not as beautiful on this side of the border.  A good time to read!

We hit the edge of Almaty and as we know, its a big busy city.  It seemed to take ages to get to our hotel. The Holiday Inn was where we would start and end this journey!

Once we were unloaded and had tipped our guide and driver and bid them goodbye, we got checked in and cleaned up.  It was about 3:30pm, so we were going to clean up and get rested before hitting the town to celebrate Emily.

We first met on thee Terrace of the hotel at around 6pm and had some cocktails. The drinks are weird here, you order alcohol on its own, and in comes in shot glasses. I don't know if that's normal or just the way it is in some places. Anyways, we ordered some juices and some vodka and mixed our own drinks.

Then we headed down to our favourite little place with the nice outdoor patio (from the start of the trip) and had some appies and more drinks. This place is awesome! We've been here multiple times and it never misses!

We headed to the restaurant connected to Big Apple for dinner.  It was a really neat place, very eclectic and hip kind of place.  We started with a champagne toast in honour of Emily and her 30th...and also because she had survived her first true Fougner style trip with us - and we were all still talking to each other! We are so happy to have her as part of our family! We have actually swung the female ratio and took the lead with 6 females to 5 males!

The wine was delicious and the food was incredible. Almaty has not let us down. It is an incredible city that has so much to offer.  For people looking for a small taste of adventure, but with the safety and security of good food, water etc., Almaty is definitely your place. It's very European.

After dinner the girls and Dave, Mom, Erik (he's still been feeling sick) and I went back to the hotel and the youngins took to the town. Robert has a friend here in Almaty - so they will be well taken care of and will have a great night!

When you get to my age, you get more excited about getting to bed so that in the morning you can go get a great breakfast and cup of coffee! Definitely going to the Big Apple cafe tomorrow!

Day 14 - Karakol

We are nearing the end of the trip and we haven't done much shopping, so today we are going to fill that void.  The sun has decided not to come out today, which is fine with us. The weather is warmer here than at Song-Kul, however it has remained cooler and only been in the 20's.  Feels more like home, which is a nice way to end the trip.

We wake up and start to gather the troops.  It turns out that Erik is really sick. We aren't sure if its something he ate or drank...but he's down for the count today and Robert is still sleeping, so Brian, Emily, Bruce, Wendy, Dave and the kids and I head into town for Breakfast.  Our guide and driver had arrived at 10am to pick us up and we had them drive us to another highly google rated breakfast spot and then gave them the rest of the day off. 

Tomorrow we would be driving all the way back to Almaty in Kazakhstan and it would be a pretty long day. It was also Emily's 30th birthday, and so we were trying to minimize our time in the car and be able to get to Almaty in enough time to begin the birthday festivities. We decided we would leave at 6:30am tomorrow and hopefully that would get us into Almaty by 3ish. We would be stopping at Cheryn Canyon along the way, which we really hoped would not be 20km off the highway on gravel.  I had been able to ascertain from our hotel that the road would be bad in Kyrgyzstan until we hit the border, but that as soon as we hit Kazakhstan, they would improve greatly.  So I gathered that the drive tomorrow morning until we hit the border might be rough.  It certainly seemed like it was going to take us a very long time for a quite short distance.

We had really nice coffees and breakfasts, and realized that they did box lunches to go. So we decided we'd come back later on and order lunches for everyone for the next day. That would eliminate us needing to find somewhere to stop tomorrow.  If my timing was accurate, we should hit Cheryn just before lunch, we could visit the canyon and eat and then be back on the road again.  Fingers crossed that all went well.

After breakfast we wondered down the main road.  It is not what you would expect from a main road of a pretty significant sized city, with broken sidewalks, rough roads, run down shops, again I'm reminded that its not a wealthy place.

We are on a mission to find the One Village One Product Issyk Kul store. It is a gift shop that sells mostly hand made and hand died felt products from the region. Their story is what is so powerful though. They are an association established by local regional producers in the surround lake region to promote community empowerment through the creation of unique products.  The women that produce the products are paid fair wages and taught safe work practices.  Supporting them while we were here was high on my list.

We found the shop tucked along the main street and it would not disappoint. The shop is bright and clean and beautifully laid out.  The felt products are stunning, and I'm not sure how we will choose what to not buy! There are slippers, hats, scarves, ornaments, purses, jewelry and more.  I'm in heaven and we do our part to support the local economy with slippers, a beautiful rug, and various other items.

We wander down from there in hopes of finding some felt sweaters, but no luck. We do find a very strange mall that sells everything from baby gear to gift cards in open stalls over multi levels.  It's interesting for sure, but no sweaters.  Our last stop is a Soviet antique shop that I had read about. It's so awesome and filled with so many cool things.  Avery gets a couple of very old stirrups and stirrup buckles, Cadence gets an old pocket watch. Fiona had gone off with grandma and grandpa for lunch, but would go back and get herself a couple of trinkets later on.  There is something for everyone, and when we fall short on enough money for Cadence's old pocketwatch, he gifts her the remainder. Everyone feels like they've found a treasure.

We wander further along to the place we went for dinner last night and grab some lunch. It is equally as good as the night before. Sort of a fusion of local cuisine and chinese food. Delicious.

We head back to the hotel to nap and relax a little. It's been raining off and on, so its becoming hard to continue walking around.  Back at the hotel I sort through our newly cleaned laundry and do some packing.  Dave isn't feeling well and so he naps and girls hang out, Fiona plays Xbox with the hotel manager which is pretty hilarious.

We head out for dinner a while later to a place suggested by the hotel. It has pretty good reviews so we give it a go.  Unfortunately they seem out of most things on the menu, and once everyone else's dinner shows up, they tell me they don't have my item. Could have honestly poked her eyes out. I share some of Fiona's food and we get by.  The boys order a large bottle of vodka, which seems to get drunk very quickly, and then its time for bed again. The days just seem to slip by. We bring Erik back a burrito, he feels finally able to eat something.

We get organized for he day ahead and head to bed. I had had to sleep with earplugs the night before as we wanted the windows open to get some of the cool air, however their appears to be a wild pack of dogs in the surrounding area that are constantly barking and scrapping with one another. I now can't find my earplugs, so tonight's sleep might suck.  Also, Dave is still not feeling well, so between his movement and the dogs, 5:45am feels very early when it arrives.

Day 13 - Song Kul to Karakol

I didn't sleep as well last night. My sunburnt skin was sizzling and I thought my tiredness from riding would put me right to sleep, but it was the opposite. 

We got up and had another nice breakfast in the dining Yurt. I had really enjoyed the experience of eating here, but I have to admit that most of us don't seem to be built for sitting on the floor like this.  My poor knees and back were protesting. I guess I should do more yoga.

Our plan was to leave around 9am as we had about a 6-7  hour drive today. We would have to drive the 50km out of here on the dirt roads, and then the rest of the drive we hoped would be easier and paved.

We packed up our things and loaded into the van.  We said our goodbyes to the family and thanked them for their amazing hospitality....then we were off.

We all resumed our positions in the van.  Carsick people nearer to the front and us more "robust" persons at the back.

We bumped along for the couple of hours until we got to the main road and from there we drove north to the edge of Issyk-Kul Lake where we turned east and followed the edge of this lake to Karakol. 

We still had some snacks from our drive in, and that kept us alive until we were able to find a small town on the edge of the lake to buy some groceries.  We took them down too the lake edge and rented a couple of umbrellas and swam in the lake.  I had a much needed nap in the sand and around 4pm we picked up and head off.

Today we experienced some of the worst bathrooms of my life.  Without a doubt, Kyrgyzstan is my favourite place on this trip and has the most beautiful countryside I've seen in a long time, but the towns and villages are poor and the infrastructure is in need of serious upgrade.  Apparently it has the second lowest GDI in Europe and Central Asia.  It relies heavily on agriculture for export but has few natural resources to help support this.

While this doesn't impact us greatly,  it does mean that we can't as easily stop at a restaurant outside of the big cities, or find clean bathrooms. The infrastructure just doesn't allow us to be certain of the cleanliness and our guide warns us that past tours she had done through here have ended up sick. So we stick to things we can buy in a grocery store.

Fiona, Emily and I had a very humbling bathroom experience at a rest point where we all lined up along a series of holes in the floor with 3' partitions between us.  Fiona is getting to be quite adept at the squat toilet...and somehow Avery manages to avoid them the entire trip. Once we emerged from this lovely facility, a small boy was demanding payment. Amazing how business saavy a 5 year old can be. He wasn't letting us get off scot free!

The beach stop was great, just what we needed to rest and relax.  There were lots of people at the beach and mom made friends with a young guy who was hoping to move to Canada one day.

The rest of the drive to Karakol was uneventful and we arrived at the Hillside Boutique Karakol. It was darling and so clean and comfortable. Just the ticket after two days in the Yurts.  We got settled in, cleaned up and then headed out for dinner.  We had asked our guide and driver to come back at 10am the next day in case some of us wanted to go to the beach again, so we took cabs to a very well rated dinner place.

It was a great place and the food was amazing and the portions were great. From there, Robert and Erik went off to do some Karaoke and drinking.  The rest of us went back to get a good nights sleep. Our cab driver home was hilarious and although he could barely speak any english, he did say "me Karakol Kyrgyzstan, you?" to which we replied Canada.  "Ah Kanaada!". Then he was quiet for awhile, then blurted "Gretzky!". We all laughed and said yes, he's from Canada.  Then he was quiet again for a bit, then blurted "Lennox Lewis". I didn't know who the heck that was, thank goodness for Dave and his sports knowledge. Anyways, it was cute how he wanted to find a way to connect with us. The people here have been incredibly kind and friendly. 

Day 12 - Azamat Yurt Camp: Riding the plains of Kyrgyzstan

Its a beautiful morning and I'm surprised that its already 7:30am when I get up.  There is nobody out when I exit the Yurt and I have a nice moment to myself with the lake in the distance and the beauty of the mountains around me.

The Yurt camp starts to wake up and the bustle of activity starts. The family that owns this place are incredibly hard working people.  They have young kids and there are a constant stream of new travelers coming and going.  A lot of people trek in here on foot or come in on horseback.  I didn't know that was an option! haha. that would have been fun!

We have a nice warm breakfast and some of us linger in the dining hut and drink our Chai.  We haven't had a lot of days where we haven't been heading off right away after breakfast, so the calm is nice. 

Some of us decide to walk down to the lake to swim and others decide to go for a hike up the mountains.  Robert had been making friends with the local young men last night, who I had originally thought belonged to our Yurt camp but as it turns out, were just guides spending the night before they went back to their camps.  You can stay along the entire perimeter of the lake, and many people do a multi-day journey along the 29km lake. I had assumed from the chatter that they were all playing nice and that he had had a fun night with them, but I gather they wanted his playing cards but then wouldn't let him play with them, so he took his cards back. Good on ya Robert!

The lake is beautiful and Erik swims and the rest of us sit on the shore with the cows and just take in the scenery.  When we get back to the camp three new travelers have arrived, they are from Belgium, and have arrived on horseback.  We spend time chatting with them, playing cards, hanging out on the swings, and before you know it its time for lunch. It's a lovely white fish from the lake which at first glance I think will be awful, but actually is quite tasty. 

I had joked with the family that Avery had been counting the days in our trip until we would be horseback riding and that after we rode she would be counting the days until we got home and she could go see Fox, the new pony we bought during the first week of being away. We had gone to see him the weekend before we left and fell in love with him. We were doing vet checks and coordinating his arrival to Vancouver during the first week of our trip - so of course Avery is desperate to be home to see him. We are both feeling sad that we can't be home to greet him when he arrives but we know he is in good hands with our coach while we are away.

So the day arrives and if Avery could bounce of the walls of the Yurt she would be. I think everyone is a little excited.  Avery had been up early and had been watching them bring the horses in.  They hobble their horses here so that they don't wander off too far, and most of the day they are tied up and saddled next to the Yurt camp, but in the evenings they let them go. In the morning they were bringing them in and she is counting them until she gets to the magic number of 11 plus guide horse. 

With lunch behind us its time to get ready for our adventure.  I had brought jeans for this day alone, an extravagance but I didn't want to ride is shorts.  None of us had boots, just runners, except for Robert who had somehow managed to lose his already, so he would be riding in flip flops.  They seem to ride in all sorts of footwear and didn't seem to mind at all.

The tack here is of course pretty rudimentary. It's definitely more western, but not as elaborate. They use a saddle blanket on the base, and then the saddle itself is sort of a metal/leather frame with a horn, but the seat is not built out to sit in, they instead strap a very large velvety blanket to the seat of the saddle to sit on. This is very comfortable to start, but as the hours wear on, that blanket starts to feel pretty thin! The bridle was a bit bridle with rope reigns in most cases, and the stirrups were leathers with metal stirrups, so more English style.

As we all move towards the horses, our guide helps us to discuss with Azamat who has ridden before and who hasn't.  We tell him that I have ridden, Avery has ridden, Emily has ridden and that mom had ridden a long time ago.  While I wouldn't have wished my horse on anyone else in the group, there are times when I really wondered what the hell I had been thinking.  They handed me the reins to "$hithead" (yes, I named him that) first and up I went.  The horses aren't beautiful, but they are mostly pretty and calm, and mine was tall and strong and as I tested out his steering, he did respond.

Avery hopped up on a beautiful buckskin, as did Emily. Slowly everyone was given a horse and everyone mounted.  Erik ended up on a very small horse and I have to admit I couldn't help but giggle at his long legs on that tiny horse.  We made sure that Fiona was on a very slow calm horse, and they took this seriously and I felt very comfortable with the choice.  She stayed at the rear on her pokey horse which is exactly where I wanted her. Not what she was hoping for, but she would get over it. Cadence had a lovely little horse with a lot of spunk, and Dave was on a very calm horse who kept a pretty even speed of slow throughout the ride. I was feeling nervous having all my kiddies on these horses with no safety gear, but sometimes you have no choice but to throw caution to the wind. I had to hope that the little they knew was enough for them to get by, and it was, they all did great and nobody got hurt.

Once we were ready we started to head towards the lake.  Azamat does not speak English at all, and he would be our guide for the afternoon.  It was going to be interesting.  I did ask if the horses had any special commands, and they use "Tchou" (like the end of a sneeze) to get their horses to move faster.  They don't seem to have an equivalent to whoa - so I just used whoa....over and over and over again. He was going to learn whoa dammit. 

As we got going I quickly realized that I had my hands full. This was no ordinary trail horse, he wanted to move.  Actually the front pack of horses, all ridden by women, were fast movers.  Poor Erik's horse kept turning around and wanting to go home and Fiona's horse was going so slow that she had to be lead and we were getting all spread out.  Mom said we were riding the feminist horses, haha, as the people who had ridden (all women) before seemed to be able to get their horses moving more quickly.  

The one thing that I had noticed the day before was that they really ride differently, the horses heads tend to be high and they seem to always have a very constant and hard pressure on the bit.  It became apparent that this was going to be the way we would need to ride, as letting off the pressure on the bit meant "go time" for these horse. If I let off the pressure, this guy was off like a shot.

$hithead wanted to be in the lead, so he pushed his way around everyone else to be out front all the time unless I really worked hard to keep him back.  I just sussed him out a bit, but realized that I was going to have to be one tough cookie to keep this guy in line.

Azamat rode up to me at one point and gave me the ok sign...was I ok? I wasn't sure. I wanted to ask him where the hell low gear was, but no english, I would have to figure this out on my own. We were doing lots of circles and my hands were going to be sore from pulling back on the reins all the time. But I like a challenge, and he wasn't going to be in charge unless I let him be.  We were fighting each other, but I felt like I was getting the upperhand.

The scenery was gorgeous and we rode up and down the rolling hills and along the lake side.  At the crest of a hill Azamat took a couple of group shots and we did some horse trading...haha. Poor Erik was having a hell of a time, so he traded up. After some shuffling we seemed to get into a good rhythm. I think mom ended up on Erik's horse and she was able to get him going. She took Fiona's horse on the lead line and that worked out really well.  I couldn't safely take Fiona behind me, this guy just had no slow speed.  I had to work hard to keep him in check and if I let off, we were not cantering, but galloping.

At one point, I had pulled back to check on Fiona and some of the others got out in front.  Well, you know who was not happy about that, I decided that I would let off the reins a little and see what would happen...well holy crap...I don't think I've ever gone that fast.  We were moving fast already when he decided he wanted to pass Emily and he found a whole new gear.  The surge of speed with which he took off almost took my breath away.  This boy had legs, but the brakes were another thing altogether.  If I had been more confident it would have been interesting to see how long he would have run for and where he would have taken me. He clearly had a mission in mind and I was obviously hindering it.

We followed the shore for quite a while and then headed inland.  We would circle back to the camp up and over the hills which was exciting. We climbed hills and dropped into beautiful valleys. We would sometimes come upon other Yurt camps, and other times feel like we were the only people on the planet. 

The fields were speckled with beautiful purple and yellow flowers and they seemed to stretch on forever in each direction.  At one point Azamat got off his horse and picked me three purple flowers for my three daughters. Very sweet. I also think he was curious to see the way that we were riding.  With our recent English riding training, we hold the reins very differently from him.  He was riding a very young gelding who was clearly still in training.  He too was working hard to keep his horse in check.

Robert aka "the flip flop rider"

$hithead looks tired out now doesn't he??

Avery and Cadence wanted to gallop more and they clearly were having a blast. It was making me a little nervous but they seemed to be in control so we let them have their fun.  As we looped back towards the lake and our camp came back into view, it was go time all over again.  Even grandpa Bruce got some gallop from his boy. We all came charging into the camp at full speed and they stopped on a dime at their hitching posts.

My butt was killing me, the soft blanket had been comfy at first but the metal of the saddle below had been steadily stabbing me for the last hour or so.  We dismounted slowly and walked off the stiffness that was settling in.  I was going to be sore tomorrow. It had been a long time since I'd ridden for that long.

Unfortunately, it had also been incredibly hot today, and while we had put sunscreen on multiple times, the areas that I missed were now super burnt. I guess at higher altitudes there is less of the earths atmosphere to block the sunlight.  According to google, UV exposure increases about 4% for every 300 m (1000 ft) gain in elevation.  Oops. That would explain the vibrant shade of red my skin was now turning. Fiona also had burnt hands and Cadence and Avery each had small patches on their shoulders where the sunscreen was missed. My skin would slowly blister over the next few days and then peel off in sheets. I've got to be more careful! 

After riding it was back to the lake for swims and then we read in the fields, played cards, the girls played soccer with the kids from the camp and generally we just had a really nice time.  Supper was another great meal of soup and bread, then more socializing and hanging out until the cold was too much to bare and we all huddled into our Yurt for the night.

We decided against having a fire and despite my toes being cold for the first little while, and we were snug inside for the night. There had been some concern that it would rain tonight, but we would take our chances. 

At one point during the night, Dave and I both woke up and decided to trek across the field to the bathroom.  As we stepped out of our Yurt, the sky above was spectacular.  The rain had obviously stayed away. It was like being in a planetarium.  The stars were magnificent and you could see with utmost clarity the milky way.  That night sky, surrounded by this magnificent countryside is a memory I won't soon forget.