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.