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Wednesday 2004-06-23 - Song Köl, Kyrgyzstan
Coal and cold
Today we pass through some of the most beautiful landscapes of Kyrgyzstan that I know. At first we continue along the main road from Osh to Bishkek. Then we make a short shopping stop in Chayek (where I buy a nice shawl); this is the last occasion to shop for now: we turn off the main road onto the track that will take us to Song Köl. The track first goes through a valley but soon starts to wind higher and higher into the mountains; on the road we start to see chunks of coal and their origin soon becomes clear: high up in the mountains there’s a huge open-face coal mine — a desolate place in the middle of beautiful mountains where the workers live in old railroad wagons near the mine. This settlement (one cannot call it a village) is called Kara Kichi; we have a photo stop to record the ugliness. Once past the mine we go over a high pass and a little further on we make another short stop: nearby horses are grazing in meadows full of flowers and in the distance we can see glimmering Lake Song Köl: our target for today.
To get to the lake, we take a side track, then an even smaller track through a river bed. Here it becomes really clear why we have a “truck bus” instead of an ordinary bus: it would not make it through this terrain. The truck bus, like a bus built on top of the chassis of a heavy truck with very big wheels, has no problems with it though; such vehicles were (in Soviet times) originally used either by the military or to transport workers to the factories; now they’re very much part of the fledgling tourist industry in this country.
When we arrive at the lake we stop near a yurt to have our picnic lunch. The woman who lives in the yurt (she welcomes us traditionally with fresh bread and cream) recognizes the family in the pictures I took here two years ago: their yurt is a distance away, but maybe I can walk over there this afternoon.
In summer, grazing is good on the meadows around the lake (a nature reserve) and many nomads bring their horses here then. However, the lake never completely freezes and in winter fishermen camp out here in the harsh cold to fish the lake. Lots of birds also take advantage of the fish in the lake. Unfortunately, it’s so cold now (like it often is around the lake, even in summer), we decide to move on and camp in the valley across the mountains where it will be a lot warmer. Alas, that means I won’t be able to deliver my next set of photographs either.
We go back along the side tracks and continue on the main track again which soon takes us into the mountains up to another high pass. There’s a very steep descent with a spectacular road winding down the face of the mountain: some of the turns are so narrow, the truck can’t round them at once. The pass marks a striking change in landscape: while the high plain around the lake is completely bare of trees and even shrubs, right from the pass we see a landscape with mountain sides dotted with shrubs and trees, both deciduous and coniferous. During the steep descent, the changes in vegetation are remarkable, too: buttercups are replaced by white clover; small compact alpine plants are replaced by big sturdy ones; flowering wild roses appear farther down. Our camp is a way into the valley, where we ford the river to reach our camping spot: no problem for the truck but not so easy for humans to get through! Next to our tent is a small meadow with lots of purple orchids, and in the field between our tents are lots of bunches of blue irises (probably Iris germanica): a lovely spot to camp!
