September 4th, 2021

For the first excursion of the semester, we took a hike in Ala-Archa National Park, about 40 minutes south of Bishkek. And by a hike, I do mean a real hike – about half the time, it was more climbing vertically than walking horizontally. It’s probably just as well that our two guides, Murat and Iliaz, were somewhat cagey about the difficulty of the hike, as if I had known earlier I might have been a little less enthusiastic. The sign said that it was 3km to our destination, but there’s just no way that was correct — my guess is that it was closer to 4.5km. We also started at around 7,000 ft. up and only climbed from there, so we were definitely feeling the effects of high altitude exercise. It took us around 3 hours from the base of the hike to our destination, Ak-Sai waterfall, during which time I found that the best way to distract from the breath being literally taken from my lungs by the altitude was by looking around at the figuratively breath-taking views. No exaggeration, Ala-Archa is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been in my life. When we finally reached the waterfall, we had a chance to rest, eat lunch, and refill our water bottles from the crystal-clear glacial water. The hike back down was significantly quicker, but a little treacherous due to the incline of much of the path — I was the only non-guide not to take something of a tumble, in fact, so my worst injury were sunburns on my face, arms, and neck.

We were joined by a few local Kyrgyz people around our age. In this photo, from left to right: Kathy (also in my program), Nasikham (Kyrgyz local), Murat (cultural manager at the London School), me, Sultanat (Kyrgyz local), Jake (also in my program), and Iliaz (cultural manager at the London School). Taking the photo was Mairam, another Kyrgyz local who joined us on the journey.

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