An eventful day! We set off early after a group of four Kyrgyz men gathered at a bus stop about 5 metres from the van about 6 am, and they gave us big toothy smiles and hearty waves as we left. We reached the Baskoon turn-off after a few minutes and proceeded up the road into the mountains running (not literally) frequently into huge flocks of sheep. Unlike the shepherds in other countries who ignored us at best and glared at us at worst, the Kyrgyz men on their beautiful horses waved and smiled at us.
Climbing up over two scary passes, we stopped at the higher one, the 3,869 metre Barskaun Pass and (shock horror) saw the last thing we expected to see in this wild and desolate countryside: a tour group. Their bus had stopped at the top of the pass and I got out to take a picture. We then proceeded to the huge sub-station which delivered electricity to the Kumtor gold mine (the world’s 8th biggest), and where a road turns off to he Naryn power station near the Chinese border. We decided to follow the tour group to the mine in the belief that, unlike 2018, we might be let in to see the gold mining operation. On the way there was a huge flock of sheep which I wanted to photo and looked for my phone. There it was, gone. We searched all over the van to no avail and I drove back to the sub-station where we surmised that it might have dropped out of my pocket. Nowhere to be seen, so I drove back to the Barskii Pass where I last used it. Walking up the road looking for the phone, I was stopped by one of the gold mine workers in a little van who wanted to know where I was walking to. I explained the problem so he shook his head sadly and gave me two cheese and processed meat sandwhiches. I don’t know what the meat was, but I suspect not pork as he was wearing an Islamic skull cap.
Feeling sick at heart because, although the phone was 12 years old and its screen was chipped, it had thousands of pictures of my grandchildren. We decided to travel down the single track road to Naryn and reaching the top of a pass, we met three cars with two Russian-speaking couples (either Russian Russians or Kyrgyz Russians) and a Hungarian man. One of the couples, Nikolai and Nadiya, were going on to Naryn, but the other cars turned back. We followed Nikolai, but his huge 4×4 soon lost us. We stopped for a coffee and as I went into the back of the van to turn the gas on, I found the phone.
The road was not good but the landscape was glorious. Treeless steppe with snow-capped mountains in all directions. We saw marmets, which seemed bigger than the ones we remember from Tajikistan, and a massive black bird like an eagle but much bigger which soared majestically in the sky and followed us for some time, just to ensure we got off its patch and didn’t eat any of its marmets. After driving across a shallow river and some steep little hills, we descended towards the Naryn River and came to a few buildings where the road was blocked by a barrier next to a sign stating that this was a border zone (China was just over a nearby range of mountains), and we needed a propusk (permit). A soldier came out and told us very politely that without a permit we would have to go back. So we returned to the sub-station with light snow falling and the temperature dropping to 2 degrees. We slept at the big parking place near the sub-station.
The road to Kura-Say
Kura-Say
Sleeping place for the night