I read a Kyrgyz guy’s blog post that describes a trek to a small alpine lake that you can also rent horses to, so we headed 40 minutes out of town to a small village he said to start from.

We parked by the river he said you can follow to the lake.

Homeowners in England break their backs and bank accounts to have a garden and stream like this:

Despite the unbelievable number of horses around, no rental places were obvious, but I saw a yurt camp on the map, so we headed upstream towards it:

It took probably an hour to reach the camp, which appears to have a Christmas tree lot on site:

I spoke to a couple of women running the camp about getting to the lake, which they said was three hours away by horse–the blog post I’d read said it was 2.5 hours by foot.

“Max”, who spoke good English, came out of the house and said there was a small lake 10 minutes upstream, and that they didn’t rent horses to the alpine lake and he didn’t know anything about anyone doing that.

Max felt the need to tell me the town name translated to “Black Girls”. Weird flex, but okay. Then he immediately got on his horse and rode away.

So, the blogger was full of it, I guess. Tynchtyk Zhanadyl, if I ever see you in the streets, you’re catching these hands.

We attempted the alleged 10-minute walk to the other lake, which the women said didn’t exist, but got stopped by a fence.

So we just poked around the camp for a bit before heading back to the car:

Our first look inside a yurt:

Dramatization of me vs. Tynchtyk the bogus blogger:

Heading back:

On the way home, we spotted a beautiful cemetery overgrown with grass and weeds and featuring a wild dog in one of the crypts:

Not exactly what was planned, but the best adventures rarely are.