9/23: Osh: The Wild Animal Market & 7.5 Hour Hike - What WERE We Thinking?

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We had chosen well with the apartment in Osh through booking.com. It was large, had a good location, and a lovely breakfast was delivered to our room each morning when we had asked. When we had checked in the previous morning, we'd been given a slip of paper and asked to specify the time we wanted breakfast each  day, and exactly which of about ten items we wanted for breakfast, exactly like ordering from a hospital menu, I thought!

You can see we weren't about to starve with our omelets, cheese, salami, tomatoes, cucumbers, bread and jam. There was the tiniest kitchen we'd ever seen where we could make tea and coffee but nothing else. There was a full size fridge and a two burner hotplate but absolutely no pots or pans to cook anything with! Almost the greatest thing about the place was the washer in the bathroom, a dream for long-term travelers! But, since it didn't come with laundry detergent, we had bought some  - not the Barf brand, mind you! - at the Jayma Bazaar, Central Asia's largest one, the day before. 

Yesterday morning, we'd made arrangements with a tour company to go this morning at 8 to the Osh Animal Market and then on a 'moderate' hike in the nearby Alay Mountains with a guide and driver. On the way to the market, we passed one of the many large-scale Soviet era mosaic murals Osh is known for. This one, from 1965, promoted the city's technical university. 

If you've been reading this year's blog for a while, you'll remember we'd been to several animal markets in Kyrgyzstan the last couple of weeks. The weekly markets were a great way to get a glimpse of local tradition, see all different livestock and experience something we don't see back home in the Denver suburbs. Our young guide, Kuba, told us these were bags of salt.

Right from when we entered the market area, we got a different vibe compared to the other markets we'd been to in Kochkor and Karakol. There, the animals seemed to be more controlled and less wild. Here, we had to jump out of the way when a cow began running through a crowd of people with its owner chasing it. Then this shepherd only just had control of his sheep. We weren't even in the market itself yet either, just walking toward it from the parking lot!

As at the other markets, we had to push the animals out of the way to move anywhere but we'd both sort of gotten used to that by then.

Kuba stated the market had just been moved to its current location much farther from town this year because of its increased popularity. I couldn't get over at how many people there were. Kuba explained that the men had come not only from around the region but also from neighboring Uzbekistan and Russia.

Kuba led us through the sheep section of the market, through the cattle section toward the area where the horses were. The whole time we were at the market, we didn't see any vendors selling either animal or household products; it was just animals for sale.

A few minutes after I snapped this photo of Steven he got kicked hard in his right leg, thankfully above his knee, by this horse. He was also fortunate that the horse hadn't been shod as his injury would have been far worse. I felt so badly for Steven whose face turned white as he was obviously in a lot of pain. He had to rest for a while before being able to put weight on that leg again. A crowd of men gathered around, kindly asking Kuba how Steven was doing. 

Neither of us wanted to get too close to those yak's horns!

Kuba commented that one of these cows would sell for about 38,000 som, about $550. Horses would start at 70,000 som - over a $1000 - and go up from there, he added. Those seemed like staggering amounts based on prices of items we could relate to that we had purchased while in Kyrgyzstan. 

On the way back to the car, Kuba stopped to get a drink of something. I thought it might have been fermented mare's milk, a Kyrgyz traditional drink, but he said it wasn't that. I couldn't understand what it was, as his English wasn't his strong suit! 

He kindly shared his with me - Steven didn't want any - and its sourness was a taste I wasn't familiar with.

Kuba mentioned the bales of hay sold for only 150 som, a little over $2 each. That seemed like an absolute pittance but I know nothing about farm prices. How does that compare, Christine, to the price of hay in the Ottawa Valley these days?

Steven, not surprisingly, was in pretty bad shape after being kicked by the horse so I thought we should bale out of the hike we'd planned and just head back to the apartment so he could rest. He said he wanted to stick with the plan and so we did. He added, though, that this would be his last animal market!

As we headed south toward the mountains located an hour away, we both hoped we'd be climbing hills like these and nothing too strenuous. Ha, was that wishful thinking or what?!

Seeing the sheep being rounded up on the highway, we needn't have gone to the animal market after all. Then Steven's leg wouldn't still be giving him issues!

It had begun to rain just as we left the market and I thought what a lousy day we'd picked for a hike. Luckily it only rained intermittently on our drive to the beginning of the hike. 

Then it was time for a cattle drive!

There wasn't a trailhead as such, just a spot on the road where the driver left us off and told Kuba he would meet us in several hours at a pre-assigned spot on the other side of Kumbell Mountain! This spot was called Chyiyrchyk and had an elevation of 2,389 meters or 7,838 feet above sea level. 

The beginning of the hike at 10 started off easily enough, just like the horse trek had about two weeks earlier with gently rolling hills! But then, as now, we had a mountain to cross.

Kuba told us that this area was a popular place in the summertime for locals who come out from the city to hike. Others sell horse milk from the old train cars. 

Kuba explained that the nomadic yurts of old have been replaced with permanent homes in this part of Kyrgyzstan.

Whereas a couple of weeks ago we'd been astride horses going over virtually identical terrain, now of course we were on foot. I can't begin to tell you how marvelous those horses sounded then and for the next several hours as we traversed some of the most difficult terrain we've ever hiked. 

I felt badly for Steven as his leg was so sore and wondered again and again if doing this hike was a smart thing to do.

Normally, I delete any fuzzy photos but these little blue flowers were so pretty and colorful on an otherwise mostly boring landscape, I have chosen to leave this photo in.

If you click on this picture to make it bigger, you'll see how pretty the flowers were.

Once we'd climbed several hundred feet, we began seeing thistles everywhere. They were quite attractive but we needed to be very careful of their thorns.

One of the most spectacular views from any outhouse anywhere, I can almost guarantee you, especially since said outhouse had no door!

I thought of you, Lina, Gloria and Janina when I used this privy as you all would have hated it. I wasn't wild about using the 'air-conditioned toilet' either but it was the only privy I saw in 7.5 hours. Steven and Kuba had it much easier!

In the summer months, this would have been used as a pen for animals.

More mouse mounds just like we'd seen on the horse trek in central Kyrgyzstan. 

See that mountain dead ahead over Kuba's head - that's the one we climbed!

The animal ruts made for a defined path but were narrow for people to follow comfortably in, I thought.

The thistles were our only companion for a long time as we saw no animals for several hours and no people at all for the entire duration of the hike. 

As we took a break after hiking for more than two hours, Kuba said people in the jailoo or summer pasture were growing potatoes. 

These were the last homes we also saw for several hours. 

As we climbed above the treeline, the weather got colder and the hike far more arduous. 

The views looking back were gorgeous and we were feeling proud of ourselves having come so far and doing, we thought, pretty darn well. I don't know about Steven but I remember thinking the hardest was behind us and it would be pretty well clear sailing once we reached the top and then hiked down the other side. Sadly, that was far from the reality.

It was so hard to get a grip on these shale rocks. 

I could  never quite figure out where the actual top of Kumbell Mountain was as there always appeared to be more mountaintops ahead for us to scale!

The weather turned a lot chillier once we finally made it over the top of the mountain. We saw snow on the mountains ahead and worried we might face some still that afternoon.

In the late afternoon, we did have snow flurries and intermittent rain which made it pretty treacherous hiking for Steven and me as parts of the 'trail' were slippery and very, very steep. This downward portion turned out to be far more challenging for us than the ascent had been. We both wondered if we might trip and fall as we were so exhausted. Yet, we knew we had to keep plodding on. Several times, we had to get Kuba's attention to beseech him to slow down as he didn't realize we hadn't been able to see him when he was so far ahead.

I will forever associate cow patties with Kyrgyzstan as long as I shall live as we traipsed through so many cow patties, I shudder to think!

When I saw how much longer the hike was taking us than it was 'supposed to,' Kuba said not to worry as he had once taken a group on the same hike and it had taken them until 1:30 in the morning to finish and they were a lot younger than we were!  

Kuba, being the 18 year old kid he was, rolled down the hill instead of taking the long way around and around! I think Kuba said the words in white painted rocks said 'Save our Forests."

After what we thought was a pretty grueling 7.5 hour hike, we were so relieved when we saw the driver waiting for us at the designated spot at shortly after 5:30. Steven and I had both been worried about being caught in the mountains when it got dark as we had enough trouble with our footing as it was at dusk and in intermittent rain. We could hardly believe our luck when it began raining in earnest just seconds after we got to the car.

We started at 2,400 meters and climbed up to 3,154 meters, i.e. about 2,500 feet in elevation and about 10 miles. This was called a moderate hike according to the information provided by the tour company which in our minds was utter hogwash! We both agreed how foolhardy we were to have attempted a hike of this difficulty and that we didn't have nearly enough water with us for such a long hike. Just like we promised ourselves we can't consider 'adventures' like the horse trek again, hikes like this are definitely out for us going forward, too. 

Next post: A relaxing day discovering more of Osh, thank goodness. 

Posted on October 9th, 2018, from Samarkand, Uzbekistan.