Entries about bulls

Jeti Oguz

What is Jeti Oguz? I thought to myself when I first heard it being banded about as a destination. Well I can tell you now some of the most amazing and beautiful places I have seen so far inKyrgyzstan. Our drive took us approx 20km outside Karakol [Karakol-travel-guide-1019301] before veering off to the right and entering a much rougher road than we had previously experienced in this region. As we drove through the very wide valley we saw the high mountains in the distance both sides. Stunning! We noticed as we came into the narrower part of the valley the extreme red sandstone colour of the hills around us. Much like the Red sandstone found in ranges in theUS. Our carrier stopped just around an area called the broken heart formation, for obvious reasons the two large chunks of red rock looked like a broken heart, in two pieces (pics). Behind us looked like some very nice hills, in front of them by the roadside were a collection of mobile beehives and vendors selling natural honey harvested in the summer season only. Next to these were a couple of Bird of Prey “Hawkers”. These were not your real traditional Hawkers, but ones that were “hawking” on the tourists. Takai warned us that if we started taking pictures they would start asking for money. I chose along with the rest of the group to ignore them and walk after our guide who informed us that we had a quick twenty minutes to walk to a lovely vantage point where we could photograph the “broken heart” rocks and view the vista around us. He was right, the view was great and we got some lovely shots of the rocks.

Onwards we went, about another 150mtrs to our main walk in this area, the Dragon back Gorge. We were altogether in this walk and I was wowed by the sheer redness of the crumbling sandstone. A small stream worked its way through with us and we passed Kyrgyz folk with their Yurt and horses. Using the natural shape of the cliff breaks to create sheep pens. Newly fallen giant boulders reminded us that we should be careful of the fragile rock walls around us. Along this bit of the valley I did see and picture some flora and fauna, but the main event was the gorge.

When we reached nearly the end of the bit we could do, our group split into two, our guide, Talai took the other group and they started to climb what looked like a very steep ascent to the hill in front of us, whilst Angela and I walked back round with Talai’s dad, who coincidently started all the tours Takai does now. We got back to the vehicle after about 30mins and crossed the road to take a closer look at the raging river that banked the other side of the road. A rest was welcome for my back at this point. About 30mins after that we spotted the second group coming over the hill approx quart of a mile ahead, so got back into the car to pick them up.

We continued along the road for a few kilometres when we stopped at The Valley of flowers (no flowers now as they flower during spring and early summer). Talai walked us up to a stunning view point which was quite steep in places, but as I looked back about half way up I could see the climb was worth it. As I reached the top I could see the huge rolling Jailoo below us with a huge linear forest of pine trees planted in between two large camps of Yurts.Dragon Back CAnyon with our group for scale, stunning rock formations here.This was planted for Gagarin by the Russians as he used to visit this valley to help him acclimatise after his visits in space. How nice (depends on your point of view) these trees are all in rows back dropping some beautiful mountains. To the left is a huge Jailoo pasture which had several Yurt camps and plenty of horses to match and on the right of the trees is another Yurt camp with a break before the mountain where you can walk to a waterfall. We all stopped for half an hour to catch our breath and then made our way back down to the vehicle. Picnic time! Except Talai had forgotten the tomatoes and cucumber, so our salad was a bit sparse. Takai took the group off to the waterfall; I stayed behind with his dad as A. my back had had enough and B. I could see the very large black rain cloud, I think Takai could too. I spent some time taking pictures walking through the Pine forest. Sure enough I was right, after about half an hour Angela returned with the rain on her back, and it poured.

We returned through the valley to the homestay and everyone agreed that they had had a lovely day.