While we were staying in Almaty, we mentioned to our hostel that we wanted to go to Kaindy Lake, Kolsay Lakes, and Charyn Canyon, which are some the most famous natural sights to see within a day’s drive of the city. Nate and I were trying to sort out the best option to visit these wilderness areas. You can rent a car (expensive), go on a private tour with English speaking driver (expensive), or sign up for a local bus tour (affordable). So, we decided on the latter and registered for the local bus tour. The front desk attendant at the hostel explained that this was a 2 day, 2 night tour. This statement confused us because typically these type of tours are sold as 3 days and 2 nights. Once the trip itinerary was explained in greater detail we started to understand why this description made sense, but could not figure out why anyone would run a tour with the planned schedule.
We were told that the tour began at a bus station on the outskirts of the city. By bus station this was actually just a normal bus stop on the side of the road where 50 people rock up with all their baggage and wait for our large tour bus to arrive. The most interesting part of this, and difficult for us to understand was that the bus was scheduled to depart at 9:30pm for a 5 hour bus ride, which would get us to our homestay at 2:30am. Where is the logic in arriving in the middle of the night? Why not start at 6:00pm and arrive at a decent hour? Nonetheless, Nate and I took the public bus across town to join our fellow 48 tourists on this late night adventure. Quickly we realized we were the only non-Russian/Kazakhs in the group and our tour director only spoke Russian. And so began the wild ride.
A very important note about the culture of Central Asia is that people here do not believe in lines. When the bus pulled up it was essentially a mad dash to the doors with the elderly ladies throwing the most elbows. Nate and I divided and conquered with Nate placing our luggage under the bus, while I braved the stampede at the bus door and fought to get two seats next to each other. From there we stopped twice in the middle of the night for bathroom and food before arriving at the small local village of Saty around 2:30 in the morning.
Similar to the late departure time, the disembarkation process also perplexed us. We sat on the bus while the tour director called out names. The bus would stop briefly for those called to collect their baggage and unload the bus, and a local woman waiting on the side of the street would then welcome them into her home (in the middle of the night!). We waited for our names to be called and were greeted by a pregnant woman in her late teens or early 20’s who, without any English spoken, kindly invited us into her farmhouse. She showed us our room and how to find the outhouse 30 meters behind the home, and then we quickly settled into bed just prior to 3:00am. Nate and I paid a bit extra for a private room, which was a terrific decision because we found out that had we paid the normal fee, we could have been at a different guest house as they seemed to split up men and women that shared the larger rooms. At our guesthouse we had a room with two single beds, as well as a large room with 7 beds for all women.
The following morning we awoke to a knock on the door beckoning us to breakfast. All of the other women were already there feasting on bread and porridge, and we found this first meal together to be really awkward because they were all speaking Russian with no one in the housed able to speak even a word of English. Later we found out that the group included a family of three from Omsk Oblast, Russia consisting of a grandmother, mother, and 10 year old daughter, along with 4 woman consisting of 3 older lady friends and one of their daughters from Shymkent.
Our first stop on the trip was to Kaindy Lake which is an alpine famous for the petrified trees that remain in the lake and the beautiful milky blue water. Each homestay had a rugged ex-Soviet 4 x 4 vehicle show up in the morning to transport the tourists to the lake, which we soon realized was the only type of vehicle that could make it over the rocks and extremely steep road. There were several times when we had to drive across a significant river to make our way up to the mountaintop lake.
Once we arrived at the parking area, we had 3 choices for the final accent. We could take a horse ride to the lake, another 4×4 taxi could be hired to reach an upper drop off, or we could hike for an hour. Following the lead of most of the other tourists we chose the hiking option, and despite the severe uphill at first we enjoyed the beautiful walk through the forest. Our first views of the lake were magnificent and more than even the pictures prepared us for. The lake is a turquoise blue with many dead trees seemingly petrified since the day of the landslide that formed this lake, and still standing tall throughout.
We first walked all the way around the lake in order to get up close and personal and try to avoid some of the crowds. In order to get to the shore, you first had to take off your shoes and wade across a small stream of water. This water was so cold that it literally made your feet past numb but super painful. There were some people that were just wading in with no problem while Nate and I were suffering. At least it was a sunny day!
We took a couple of pictures there and them moved further around the lake to more of the crowds to take more pictures. Finally, we had to rush back to our 4×4 so that it didn’t leave us behind. I think it total they gave us 3 hours at the lake.
Our car took us back to our home stay for lunch and we laid down for a bit because we were so tired from our 2:30 arrival the night before. At lunch the other ladies in the house started to open up to us more and we used a lot a google translate to learn more about each other. They kept trying to ask me to bathe and drink vodka with them in the evening which I found a little odd.
From there we heard a honking of the horn and our big bus was back to whisk us away to our next destination, Kolsay Lake. There are actually 3 lakes that you can hike to around this area, but we would only have time to see the main lake. When we hopped on the bus, Nate and I sat in different seats then we were the night before and on man people were not happy. We were asked to move to our seats. I guess once you choose a seat on a bus tour you are not allowed to moved around!
Kolsay Lake was really nice but very touristy. At this point in the day we were feeling really tired from the night drive, so naturally we had to get an ice cream to give us more energy. We started hiking down to the lake and what we noticed was the lake was covered in boats that you could rent. They spanned from rowboats to paddle boats and even boats that looked like cars.
Everyone who hiked down went down and to the left around a paved path that ended at the boat docks. Nate and I instead decided to go right around the lake because it looked more like a hiking trail. We took that along the river and then high above the river looking down. Once we found a bench, we laid down on the bench, dozed off and I read my book. It was a wonderful relaxing afternoon watching the boats.
After Kosay, we returned again to our home stay for dinner which again was a hilarious round of google translate with our new friends. There was a bonfire party that night, but we skipped that because were were too tired and went to bed early.
The following morning we repeated the routine of breakfast and then back on the honking bus. The hilarious part about this morning is that lunch was not included in our tour cost so our first stop was a place to purchase lunch. Once we arrived, we saw a giant line going up the stairs and had no idea what to do or expect since no one spoke English. When we got upstairs we saw a mad dash to a table of food which was almost in a wedding type hall. You had a choice of a couple of dishes and as much bread as you want.
From there, we started our trek back to Almaty going via Charyn Canyon. We first stopped at Black Canyon which has a river running through the canyon and really beautiful views. They only gave us 15 minutes so we had to go see it fast and take pictures.
Our second stop was just a view of the river in general. Again this was a 15 minute stop and the views were really beautiful. What made me laugh at this stop was this Russian guy from another one of the buses. He must of been trying to be the next influencer. Picture a jacked up guy running around to everyone asking them to take pictures for him. He threw his phone into my hands and told me to take pictures and was like “bu bu bu bu” to indicate just keep shooting. He proceeded to go through a myriad of poses including the normal ones but then took out his phone and pretended talk talk and then pretended to take selfies. It was all very strange.
Our final stop of the day was Charyn Canyon which is one of the must-see spots in Kazakhstan. It was a scaled down version of the Grand Canyon, but it was still pretty majestic. They gave us about 2.5 hours to walk around and explore. Many people walked down and through the canyon, but we preferred to stay high because we thought canyons were best seen from above. We walked to the end and had our lunch with a view of the canyon. Then we spend the rest of the time walking around and trying to see as much as we could.
Finally, we returned to the bus and completed our 5 hours return trip back to Almaty. We had one bus mishap on the way back where the driver of the bus kicked us off the bus insisting that he did not stop where we were going to find out later, after finding a new bus, that they bus did indeed stop at our stop. Chalk it up to language miscommunications.
The following day would be last in Almaty and we made this a pretty chill day. We went to see the Central State Museum of Kazakhstan. Here we battled a whole school of children on a field trip to see all of the exhibits. The first level started with ancient history of dinosaurs and wooly mammoths, the second floor looked at early civilizations of the area and showed tools, lodging, and clothing of different types of people that lived in the area. The third floor was dedicated to more recent history and showed weapons, paintings, and looked at the history of independence.
That night we had our final dinner at a restaurant called Cheeseria, which has you may have guessed is known for its cheeses. It was a really good Italian restaurant and I would highly recommend it to anyone. We ordered a four cheese pasta and a diavola pizza and both had a lot of flavor. Nate even managed to order a blue moon beer!
While we only stayed in Kazakhstan for 8 days, it was action packed and we felt like we got to know the city of Almaty and some of the beauty that Kazakhstan has to offer. The people were friendly and accommodating and the cafe culture of Almaty made this city feel very much like the cosmopolitan city that it was made out to be.
Next stop….Kyrgyzstan!
Teri and Nate's World Adventures 