August 16, 2016
to Issyk-Kul Lake: Easy day down to the second largest alpine lake in the world
We take only one restday in Kochkor, if there had been better restaurants in town it would not have been difficult to convince ourselves otherwise. There are a couple of decent food and nice fresh fruit and vegetables in the bazaar so we stock up for a couple of days to Karakol.
After breakfast we leave Guesthouse Tumar, pick-up some drinking water and refill our fuel bottle on our way out of town. Today is a nice ride to get back into it. First, there is a long gradual downhill along the river to Orto Tokoy Reservoir. Along its shore we see a herd of two-humped Bactrian camels. Not sure if they are wild so we don’t approach too close, but still close enough for some good shots with the telephoto.
Then over a slight rise and a glorious downhill we reach Issyk-Kul Lake. At 170km long and 70km wide, this is the second largest alpine lake in the world after Lake Titicaca in Bolivia. Maps dot me shows a few campsites near a comma shaped peninsula, we turn on the little dirt road that leads down to the lake and find a couple of yurts, one a “hotel” and lots of day trippers swimming in the lake.
We decide to pitch our tent on the beach. The lake is slightly saline so we have filled up our water bladder at a stream a while back, also picked up a large bottle of beer and coke. So we spend the afternoon with a swim, beer and potato chips. The yurt provides us our dinner of friend potatoes, carrots, egg and a tomato cucumber salad.
Two German women cyclists are staying in the yurt, turns out we met one of them back in Osh, and they cycled with Super Cycling Man near Song Kul. Small world. They tell us about a Dutch owned guesthouse in Karakol: Riverside Guesthouse.
All swimmers leave early in the evening and we have the lake to ourselves as we watch storms build up in the mountains and move over the lake.
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Today's ride: 67 km (42 miles)
Total: 1,964 km (1,220 miles)
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