Field Trip to Ala Archa

May 26, 2008

I went to Ala Archa National Park, just south of Bishkek, back in March with Male A, Male K, and Old B. While the scenery was spectacular, the day was overcast, dreary and cold. In contrast, this past Sunday was warm, sunny and gorgeous. The school decided to take whichever students and teachers were interested to Ala Archa for the day. This wasn’t an English studying excursion, simply a fun in the wilderness kind of day. We chartered a bus for the event, although our bus was... interesting. About halfway to Ala Archa, before we even started to climb in the mountains, some of the students sitting in the back of the bus began to panic and run to the front. Smoke was billowing up into the bus from underneath. The driver pulled over and went and fiddled around under the back of the bus for a while, then we continued on. As our road started to climb, he had to repeat this several times. Luckily, we did make it to our destination.

The last time I went to Ala Archa, we followed the road/trail which leads straight in. This time, we ventured to the right, following a smaller river along a valley for a while, and later climbing up the side of a mountain until we reached a cemetery for fallen mountaineers. We picnicked on a small bench on the mountainside, then descended to spend an hour or so relaxing by the main river while the students played card games and that scary game that involves hurling a volleyball at people.

J, K, Young B, me, student

The Ides in Ala Archa

March 16, 2008

Since neither A, K, B (the new teacher), nor I had been to the Ala Archa National Park, the school arranged a trip for the four of us this weekend. Ala Archa is a large park in the mountains and valleys surrounding the Ala Archa river, located roughly 30km south of Bishkek. We were driven there at 10:00 Saturday morning by the school’s driver, and dropped off at the park gate, left to fend for ourselves until 4:00 when the driver planned to return. I must say it wasn’t exactly the best weather for spending six hours hiking about in the wilderness, as it was chilly, dreary and overcast, but we had a good time anyway.

At the entrance to the park are two statues, one of a mountain goat and one of a snow leopard.

Of course, we had to mount them.

The scenery was spectacular – even with the dreariness of the day

Camera-shy B, not realizing I was taking his photo, sits by a rock along the Ala Archa river

We came across this incredibly safe looking bridge…

…and of course decided to cross it. There wasn’t anything on the other side....

…although the view from the center of the bridge was pretty worthwhile…

…as were most of the views.

АСХАТ might very well be a Kyrgyz name, I don't know...
But it’s pronounced “asshat” :-)

Further upstream, we encountered another super-safe bridge.We crossed this one too…

…and once on the other side of the river, we decided it would be a good idea to try and climb this cliff.

We only made it about halfway.

The view was pretty cool though.

See what I mean?

Of course, getting back down the cliff was quite an adventure. At one point I was on my ass, sledding though the snow for quite a ways. I had a very wet ass for the rest of the afternoon, and was feeling very much in need of an ass hat.

We had seen a café near the park’s entrance, and, seeing rain clouds advancing towards us, we decided to leave the park in search of some shashlik and beer. Now I don’t know what Ala Archa is like during the rest of the year, but it’s not exactly a happenin’ place in March. There was only one café at the park’s entrance that was open – and it didn’t have any food! I kid you not. There was a woman wandering about in a chef’s hat and apron, but she told us there wasn’t any food. Nor was there beer. In fact, the only thing available was one liter of Coke and one of Sprite. So we ordered them (at 80som/bottle – total rip off!) and broke out the remains of our picnic.

All in all, it was a good day. However, after seeing Nick and Jessica’s pictures from summertime Ala Archa, I know that I must go back once it’s green up there!