Life in Shanghai

Monday, August 13, 2007

Song Kol

Our second trek was to a 3000 meter lake called Song Kol. There are pleanty of Kygyz nomads living in yurts who have learned they can make a pretty good sum of money off of treking tourists. They provide a place to stay, blankets and food and the tourists provide the funds. We thought it was a good deal, because that way we didn't have to hike with food, tents, and sleeping bags. The first night was interesting. We hiked from about 3 to 7:30 after having waited out a morning rainstorm.

We waited out the rain with this family in there wagon. (They never made it to oregon).
From 3 to 7 the day was beautiful and sunny. At about 7 a sudden storm brought rain, then hail, then lightning. We were drenched in about 2 minutes. Luckily the yurt we were headed for was about thirty minutes away. The yurt had warm blankets and a stove to thaw us out.

That wall is made out of dryed poop, thats what they burn in the stove.

The next day we had good weather. We had to cross a 3,400 meter pass. The weather reached just above freezing, and a few snow flakes fell. As we crossed the pass, the lake came in to view.


The hike down to the lake was easy. The weather stayed somewhat clear for awhile, but there were various cloud systems constantly building and passing. Right after we ate lunch, a system of dark clouds started coming on fast. Luckily a tourist yurt was present, so we ducked inside for some bread and tea. The clouds and passed quickly so we decided to keep moving. We hiked about another hour along the lake, when another storm started approaching. There was a small settlement of various yurts and animals present. As we were looking for someone to talk to, it started hailing. We split into two groups, Erik and Trey went into a yurt, and Gilles and I went into a canvas tent.

The people in our tent were friendly and served us tea and bread. The storm didn't quit. It was cold, and it started to snow after a little while. (By this time I was on my 15th or so cup of tea for the day).
We asked as well as we could if we could stay the night. This tent was small and there had been many people in and out as we sat there. We had no idea how many people were planning to sleep in it. Through various English, French, German, Kyrgyz and Russian words as well as hand signals we found out that either five, seven or 10 people slept there. I thought five would be tight. We later found out that five were in the family, seven with us and he thought that 10 was possible. So we slept seven in a row on the ground.

This is the family. The lady in the goldish flower gown came from somewhere for the picture, she didn't sleep in the tent with us.
They offered us dinner. It consisted of bread, tea, butter, some other milk product, milk, and pieces of cold sheep that they took out of a grocery bag. Gilles came up with excellent idea that we were vegitarians. Had I had some concept of when the meat had last felt heat, I would have been more apt to eat it.
The evening was passed trying to communicate. Luckily Russian, although it is not at all similar to English, is about a million times more similar to English than Chinese. We communicated some basics. I showed them my pictures from the trip thus far. I took videos and played them for them; they loved that.

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