Kazakhstan

The border crossing wasn't too bad, only taking us 3 hours to get though. 

Our destination was to be camping in
Aksu-Dzhabagly Nature Reserve, 1319 sq km of valleys and mountains bordering both the kyrgz and uzbek borders.  However because of the weather and complaints from the group we stayed in a home stay in the village of Zhabagjly. First night I was sharing a room with 5 of us and didn't sleep too well but it was warm, we had good traditional food and the shower was hot.  I had the same room all to myself the second night and slept like a baby.

Jill, Jacqueline, Nigel, Andrew and I trekked by horse from the village to Kshi-Kaindy a mountain refuge near a waterfall at  1700m, a 24km round trip taking 6 hours. Not as cheap as in Kyrgyzstan but the horses were much better.  Still no helmets, better saddles and yet more problems for me with the horses, these were much bigger (15 hands) and the first horse I got on was a stallion who refused to budge, even the ranger couldn't get him to move with me in it!  So another 2 horses and then I got a flea bitten grey mare named Circo who was very well behaved except, as a pack horse, she wanted to join the others on a gallop!  Fortunately I managed to get her to stop before cantering  (trotting is my limit as a novice rider!) 

We stopped midway on our trek for lunch at one of the rangers huts and to view the waterfall, this would be more spectacular during spring when the snow melts from the mountains. 

Further along the valley, the rest of the group camped near the 300m Aksu Canyon, some in the tents but most in the rangers house. 


So much then for Kazakhstan!
A brief couple of nights here. 

On to Uzbekistan and the silk route cities...