Day 28

Most of awoke having spent our first night ever in a Yurt, and this proved to be a comfortable and enjoyable experience! We had breakfast consisting of yoghurt, bread and 3 fried eggs! The homemade apricot jam was also very enjoyable.

After photos, we said goodbye to our hosts and drove down the track 800 metres to Lake Ysyk-Kol, where we parked up by the sandy beach. We all had a good dip or swim in the rather cold lake, washed clothes and enjoyed a general wash and clean up. It was very sunny, the sand was hot and quite a few of us got sunburnt!

We had a beach-side lunch of bread with salami and a self-made tomato and herb dip with some wild chives that Ben and Karl had found yesterday whilst trekking in the mountains.

We finally hit the road at about 1pm and continued East wards along the Southern edge of the Lake, where the road was in reasonable condition by Kyrgyz standards anyway!

The road eventually departs from the Lake and we drive through two small villages, Darkan and Saruu, these are noticeably greener and tree-lined than some previously seen on our journey, though still with the usual friendly locals smiling and waving, not to mention the donkey and carts, cattle in the road and the ubiquitous Ladas.

We stop off at a larger village to exchange some Dollars for local currency and of course shake hands with many locals who came over to say hello and show off a few words of English.

We head off to Zeti-Oguz, which is a 'sanatorium', a kind of health spa resort built in 1932 by the Soviets, the location where Yeltsin met the Kyrgyz President following the 1991 coup in Moscow.

It is situated in a river valley overlooking some very impressive sandstone mountains, known as the 'seven bulls'.

We were shown around by a guide called Kairat, but sadly the sanatorium has fallen into disrepair. The rooms were extremely basic and you would not want to swim in the pool!

We decided not to stay here and continued along the river valley to find a suitable location to camp.

The track became very rough and rocky and weaved several times across the river over rickety wooden bridges.

Eventually we found a good place to set up our camp right alongside the river. Camp was ready in no time, now a very slick operation, and Ben made us a very nice noodle soup, and Chris did a very tasty tuna pasta, and we tried a little bit of tinned horse meat!

We discovered a bolt in one of the Discovery tyres. This was our first puncture and tyre change, a fitting testament to the superb Goodyear MTR's.

.A man on a horse rode past us with a foal in tow that decided to pay us some close attention, and some local fishermen walked past with their catch.