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Tuesday 2004-06-22 - Ala Bel, Kyrgyzstan
Photographs not delivered
We have to make an early start today for a long trip: up at 5, breakfast at 6, departure at 7. First we round Lake Toktogul around the eastern tip and switch back along the northern side; then gradually north and up toward Ala Bel (the Ala pass) at 3175 m where I photographed a nomad family in the snow three years ago. On the way to the pass I notice how at this time of the year there are indeed a lot more flowers than later in summer. The mountains look ‘painted’ with brush strokes of bright colors - most striking is the bright orange of a type of Ranunculus with fairly large flowers, usually just a bit higher up the mountains than the related warm-yellow buttercup which is also abundant now.
At the pass, we stop at the first yurt. Although there’s no snow this time, it’s still pretty cold this high up. With the help of our interpreter Bolot the friendly family that lives there in the summer tells me the friendly old Kirghiz on his horse in the snow in one of my pictures has died; his wife (in the other picture) still lives though and is in a yurt “2 kilometers” farther on. That turns out to be too vague: at that distance there are actually a lot of families in yurts; we don’t have time to stop at all of them to search for her. I’m very disappointed, knowing she is here while there is no way to deliver the photographs.
