The driver – Ruslan – loads the luggage and asks with half a mouth: “Can we please pop by my flat, because my wife will kick me out of home – haven’t returned from work for days. Just to leave some stuff, it won’t take long…”
We do believe him. The poor guy by accident let us hear his wife’ telephone call. We feel sorry for him. However, we provide him with business, so our conscious is as clean as a baby is. Whilst we discuss that, Ruslan stops to fill in the tank with fuel. Immediately we spot a charming mosque and run towards it – for us all religious temples are samples of the local culture, and always enjoy in full the beautiful architecture.
Ruslan, melted by our kind attitude – suggests showing us the biggest landmark. A mosque again. Truly remarkable! The car has barely stopped and we literally ran away like champagne taps. Probably because the building will move away… I won’t even mention that we leave all our luggage inside and just grabbed the photo cameras.
In one moment I was shaken by the thought that if this unknown buddy abandon us there, stealing our luggage, documents and money, our mission will not simply crash, but we will be subject to pure laughs by all reasonable people. And they will be right! We are quite naïve big white birds (not сванс!). However, this mental nightmare resides only in my brain. The lack of trust has damaged us as people – at least I feel damaged. I am sincerely happy that all Kyrgyz people did not prove my fear.
So… The mosque was amazing! In fact, we entered by accident the forbidden – for women – part. They were not crossed with us – too much… Only a worried old lady tried to grab and drag us out.
What really make us smile though were the toilets. We almost entered the gents’ part *(again!) and all people around us start screaming. We somewhere fail obviously, so start searching our part more carefully. At the end success – however I still smile, when I remember our eyes like pancakes, not knowing what to do with this room…
We leave Ruslan’s home and his happy wife – my friends have brought her nice Bulgarian lady stuff, which melt her to the bones. In fact, today’s route is quite long and after many hours driving for other clients, Ruslan probably feels really tired, Bishkek – Karakol is more than 400 km, and the roads – with few exceptions – are not charming at all. The travel is approximately 6-7 hours one way, and if you count the stops… And then he has to return… However, it is a job, and Ruslan is happy. So do we, even more. Especially when the spectacular scenery appears at the horizon…
Big mouth – times three – very hungry and we finally arrive as something like a bistro. I would say the only one opened put on the road and we refuse to move, until they feed us…
They do feed us. They feed our curiosity about the food, as well. I am afraid that our Russian is obviously not so good, because no matter of the explanations we cannot guess what the meals are, nor we cannot remember their names…
However, I will say it here and on many other places – the food in Kyrgyzstan is amazing! We have been warned and frightened that there are no vegetables, and people are almost starving. This is a rude lie. The vegetables have the very taste I remember from my childhood in Bulgaria and has nothing to do with the plastic taste I experience nowadays. In Kyrgyzstan there is no chemistry and if affects food in most positive way. There are in fact no factories in the country – 93% of the territory of Kyrgyzstan are mountains. Nevertheless, you can always order vegetables, and the meat is simply fantastic!
The whole pleasure of eating costs us – for all four of us – around 14 US$.
Later in the evening, we pay a significantly higher bill – in a famous restaurant. However, in Kyrgyzstan you can eat cheap with highest possible quality of food. Here is a sample of a menu in Bishkek, so you can get the flavor what I am talking about.
The scenery become more and more dramatic – we circle around Issyk Kul Lake and Northern Tian Shan. Extraordinary mountain, and the lake is the second biggest salt lake worldwide – after Caspian sea. It’s length is 182 km. We are travelling along the Northern tangent pf the lake. On our way back we explore the southern part. We even touch the water… Here the Mountain is leading our emotions. Tian Shan lets me scream of pleasure. I fall in not so calm Nirvana.
In the same way the high voltage cables insist on being present in all my photos…
From Nirvana takes me out an extraordinary-special-out of the box road, which extracts all our bowels. We survive though. However, we start streaming again, when we see our yurt in Karakol…
I can’t forget mentioning the priceless gifts from my friends, and I mean the most important – the liquid one. Two pieces! And now plese imagine my smile, when I see my most favourite drink…
The extraordinary spirit – called rakya – is not enough. Big mouth – three pieces – hungry again. We visit the most popular – and recommended by our landlady – local restaurant.
This is Balkantourist (ex-socialist, famous and luxurious travel agency in Bulgaria) – our jokes are quite entertaining. Until the moment, we understand there are no vacant tables. And we start praying – we are damn hungry! And they let us in, using internal table for the personnel. Oh, my God – we just attacked the food! I don’t remember names, however all the food was extraordinary tasty, and the people – extraordinary kind, doing everything to feed us.
Extraordinary kind is also Almaz – the owner of our horses, but I will tell you about him tomorrow…
To be continued…
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