Day 80. Tranchy - Karakol

We woke up this morning to an email from our China agent informing us the Torugart Pass border will be be closed in the 12th and 13th for Eid festival, open again on the 14th. Agghhhh.
We have been booked in for the 12th for months!  So emails back and forth from here to NZ to China to try to get some clarification about where to go from here. Our visa expires on the 16th so we’re cutting it fine...... 

Damn we have to kill more time until the 14th. In the meantime Pakistan and India are hotting up over Kashmir so keep watching folks all our plans might change in a heartbeat. 

Today we set off for Karakol with a planned excursion into a valley we have heard about.


A few kms before the turnoff I had a wee visitor inside my helmet and he (or she) gave me a good old sting. 
Nothing too dramatic but a few minutes later my whole upper body began to itch I got a rash and welts and I got symptoms of indigestion. An antihistamine and a rest seemed to calm things down
 ( Didn't calm me down I had visions of having to SOS SPOT to get emergency support and learn how to ride a bike on a gravel road. Maybe I should have had an antihistamine and a lie down- Robyn) 

 We continued into a beautiful valley up a gravel sideroad. It was a loop track so it brought us back onto the main road. Really nice and the air was cool,the area has  a combination of animal herders and things for tourists to do like trekking, horseriding, 4 wheel driving etc as well as yurt camps. 





We are now in Karakol a tourist town all year round, in the door step of Lake Issyk Kul which is very impressive, the 2nd largest saline lake in the world after the Caspian sea. 
It is also a ski resort in the winter. Holidaymakers are mainly local but also many Kazakhs and Russians are here. 

I seem to have recovered from the sting but I have a nasty welt on my cheek and my right eye is partly closed. Whatever is was it has left it’s mark. (on Mark)

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