We left Bishkek this morning for our 340km trip to our accommodation at the shore of Lake Toktogul.
Initially the road was fairly busy, but eventually we had left Bishkek and the surrounding towns (along with associated traffic) behind. Traffic was light, when we hit the Ala-Tau mountain range, snaking our way uphill towards the Töö Ashuu Pass and its tunnel with a length of about 3km at an elevation around 3150m.
Coming out of the tunnel on the other side, it was downhill again. We had a quick stop at one of the street vendors, to get a taste of two of the region’s specialties:
- kumis: fermented mare’s (horse) milk … similar to strong buttermilk or kefir in taste, albeit with a bit of a kick from the slight amount of alcohol contained
- cheese (balls) from mare’s milk … again stronger than what we are used to in cheese, a bit like concentrated feta cheese – barely edible on itself (just too strong), though I can imagine, it being a nice with some bread, slices of tomato and cucumber
We continued downhill into the Suusamyr Valley – still well above an elevation of 2000m. Lunch was had in a road-side chaikhana – the first noodle soup of many to come 😉
After lunch we continued along the valley – before eventually heading up again towards the Alabel Pass (3184m above sea level), passing into the Suusamyr-Too mountain range and facing the first and only (left-over) snow of the trip.
It was now downhill again towards Lake Toktogul, a reservoir feeding into a hydroelectric power plant and irrigation systems. We made a trip around half the lake, to reach our hotel.
