Horse Trekking in Kochkor

April 2, 2008

Last Sunday J and N departed Bishkek, after finishing up their time teaching at The London School. Before they leave Kyrgyzstan, they’re spending a few weeks traveling around the country. The first leg of their journey took them from Bishkek to Kochkor (where we bought the shyrdaks on our way home from Naryn for some horse-trekking with CBT, and they invited us to go with them.

Sunday morning, N, J, K, Girl A, B the Younger (as opposed to B the Elder who went with me to Ala Archa), M and I set out for Kochkor. Like our trip to Naryn, this journey began with crazy haggling for taxis in front of the bus station. I was able to negotiate us a private minivan to take us all to Kochkor for the price of 1400soms, which I thought was a pretty good deal. However, I swear we got the one sedate driver in the entire country of Kyrgyzstan. Now, it’s not that I want to complain at all about a driver actually following the rules of the road for once, but after spending so much time in places such as Russia, South Korea and Kyrgyzstan where rules of the road, if there are any, are generally ignored, riding with this man was simply bizarre. The trip to Kochkor is supposed to take two to two and a half hours; it took us three.

Anyway, we arrived in Kochkor a little later than we intended, and with one more person than we’d reserved horses for (B being a late addition to our adventure). We ended up waiting around a bit for them to find an eighth horse (we needed a horse for our guide too, thus the eight). While we waited, I talked to the other seven horses and tried to decide which one I wanted to ride, as I really didn’t want to end up on a crazy and/or evil horse. I was leaning towards a small black one, but in the end changed my mind and went for an adorable little tortishell-colored pony.

Unfortunately, Tortishell Pony was a total slug. When we started riding, I couldn’t make him do anything other than walk, and even that took effort. I got him to trot for a few strides, but only because I’d stopped to take some pictures and the other horses had gotten ahead. Once we caught up, he went back to being nigh unmovable. Meanwhile, poor J, who had only ever been on a horse something like twice before in her life, had been put on the largest of the ponies (probably the only one of the bunch to make it to actual horse-size), which was totally full of energy and in need of a strong rein. Additionally, it was the eighth horse that we’d been waiting on, and apparently belonged to a different herd than the rest of the horses, and it did not like any of the others. We began calling it Bitchy Horse.

J on Bitchy Horse

Shortly into our trek, our guide turned back to help B, who had landed the most sluggish pony of the bunch. In his absence, we weren’t entirely sure where to go. Bitchy Horse decided he knew where he was going, and began leading the way, much to J’s chagrin. At first she figured the horse knew where it was going... then it began sinking and falling over! It had wandered into a quicksand-mushy area! J was looking at me, shouting, “My horse is falling! Annie, what do I do?” (I was most unfortunately the horse “expert” as I was the only one with any real riding experience and all...) Meanwhile, I was just looking on in horror as her horse tilted and sunk – then she jumped off (I was quite proud of her quick dismount). Immediately, Bitchy righted herself and began grazing. I’m convinced it was just a ploy to ditch J. At first J was too freaked out to go back to the horse. A small Kyrgyz boy who had been watching this whole catastrophe ran up and fetched the horse for her, and led it out of the muck.

A small child rescues J :-)

The guide convinced J to get back on the horse, but she continued to have trouble controlling it. Meanwhile, Tortishell Pony continued to drag ass. I asked J if she’d like to switch horses, and we were both quite satisfied with the results. She got a pleasant, slow ride, and I got a horse with energy. Oddly enough, I bonded with Bitchy Horse and had a great time riding about the outskirts of Kochkor, wandering through herds of sheep and horses, and simply trotting off ahead of the crowd. M, who ended up with the black pony I’d passed over for Tortishell Slow Ass, was cantering all over the place, and we ended up with a few neck-n-neck races. After we’d turned towards home, we managed to get K and A’s horses to join us. It was the most fun I’ve had on a horse in years – quite possibly since I gave up riding Snowball (my childhood pony), way back in the day.

K, A, M, and the others

Horse cam!

The views during our ride were spectacular

Ditto

Bitchy and I left everyone in our dust. You can barely see them here.

This was N's first time on a horse.

K and her horse at the end of our ride

M on the black horse I'd snubbed

Me with Bitchy Horse after our ride

Bitchy Horse taking a post-ride drink

This poor cat was in heat. Given what happened to Luball getting spayed in the big city of Bishkek, there's not much hope this kitty will get fixed in the village of Kochkor.

These children raced after us on foot for quite a long way

This was the adorable and rather insane daughter of the family from whom we rented the horses.

After eating a rather sub-par dinner at one of the few cafes in Kochkor, we said goodbye to N and J, and hopped in a different minivan for our return journey to Bishkek. This driver was certainly more typical of Kyrgyzstan; we made it home in little more than two hours. I'm going back to Kochkor at the end of April (April 26-28) to relax and - hopefully - ride Bitchy Horse. I'm worried that it might not be possible, since she actually came from a different place than the other horses, but I've put in a special request - we shall see!