Travels in Central Asia

In and Around the Land of 3000 Glaciers: Kyrgyzstan

This post will be quite brief as, what I was told might happen, has: NO POWER. As it stands now, the bathroom facilities, or shall i say kitchen/bathroom sink, lack hot water (the place expects it back on Monday!). So, in the dark, with cold water, I dutifully shaved and showered (brrr!) to get out by 8am Kyrgyz time. Our first meeting is in two hours: YIKES. The power outage also prevented me from accessing the 24 hour Internet cafe (all of downtown, i.e. the capital, was without power). And considering the country made the past president leave on March 25 (he fled to Moscow with billions), power has both literal and figurative meanings in this case.

That being said, I will tell you that day four was spent among the glaciers in Al Archa Canyon, only 20 miles south of Bishkek. The height of these mountains is small for this region: only 15,000 feet, or Mt. Rainier (near Seattle) size. But there is only one Mt. Rainier which looms over Seattle. This range of 15k high peaks stretches for about 15 miles. Farther south and east these peaks really soar, to as high as 21,000 feet. My translator, Clarissa, tells me that those who tackle the likes of Annapurna and Everest practice on these foothills of the Tien Shan range. We leisurely walked for about a mile to a wooden footbridge, this in the rain which seems to fall over the mountains in a pocket of rain forest green (my other visit over the mountains on Sunday included a rainy spell while on the other side as well.) The guide book says that to trek beyond the footbridge would be classified as an easy trek. At the other side of the bridge, we were faced with an abrupt ascent and any path the trek evaluators suggested as present was covered by a rush of large boulders. Straight up the hill was about a half a mile. Shouldn't they provide tow ropes for us novice western hikers? In any event, we turned around, captured the admixture of fog, green pine, rain and even a ribbon of blue sky sunshine in sight, smell sound and photograph, to stroll back to our driver, who was dutifully waiting for us at the entrance, chain-smoking and listening to Turkish music. By the way, before the president was forced to abdicate in March, he had built for himself a cozy chalet at the entrance. Perhaps, he received inspiration from Camp David in the Maryland hills. In any event, this secure dream cottage (well, glacial palace) remains unoccupied; the new president has refused to enter it and that is probably just as well.

From there, I spent an afternoon researching the Kyrgyz language at the Center of Social Research in the National Academy of Sciences. This proved most informative and I will include some of this material in my presentation tomorrow.

Oh, and before I go, I contacted the U.S. Embassy on matters Kyrgyz and otherwise. When I took a picture of the new embassy for the file, I was forced to visit with no less than three officials to determine what kind of picture I took and what I intended to do with it. OOPS!

More from the conference later.

posted by Student Success @ 7:32 PM