When a local Kyrgyz friend signed me up for this hike, I was reasonably prepared. Bottom: Double socks, leggings, pants. Top: Sports bra, undershirt, long sleeve shirt, a sweater, and my favorite, (from Freeuse, shoutout to Bard) North Face lightweight jacket. In my backpack: a half-eaten chicken burger from Malik, a chain local to Kyrgyzstan. I have to mention this burger because the size of the “chief burger” took me 2 days to finish. It costs 350-ish som (~$4) and that burger alone replenished me about halfway way. I also had a container of chopped up purple cabbage, cucumbers, and tomatoes. If you were wondering, yes, it did leak in my backpack. I also brought a half-empty bag of classic Lays chips, half a liter of Coke-Cola, and my trusty thermal water bottle.
In the morning of the trip, after the groups gathered by Ala-Too Square, the tour guide told us that we would be making a stop at Globus (supermarket) to buy what we needed for the hike. I had packed my lunch the night before, so I took the opportunity to eat my two bananas and a yogurt whilst everyone else went shopping. Amantur, my guide, instructed us to not buy fizzy drinks because the descent down might cause stomach issues. After about ~30 minutes and the group returned back to the bus, I noticed that everyone on the bus bought fizzy drinks. That definitely made me feel much better about the soda I had bought beforehand.
Now what I write next might make me look like a big loser. Amantur made an announcement that we will play some games to get to know each other better. Now any introvert might completely understand where this is going. But I am not really an introvert. I am, however, extremely insecure about my Russian language skills. So, one by one, people on the bus begin naming an animal that starts with the same letter of their first name. Now, here I am, doing this tour by myself, and I am panicking. So what do I do? I pull the ultimate tourist card: “I understand Russian.” I’m not sure what brings more attention to a tour group: a girl speaking pretty mid Russian, OR a girl outing herself as a foreign entity. So Amantur, bless him, announces to the group that “this girl is not playing.” Damn. So, yeah, felt kinda like a loser.
My only previous hike in Kyrgyzstan was Ala Archa, on the Aksai (or Oksay?) waterfall trail, and considering that my 50+ Russian language professor was right alongside me, I thought, “hey, this isn’t so bad.”
Well, how very naive of me to think that the Kol Tor Lake hike was going to be the same. Despite being more in shape than I was 2 years ago (that’s being generous), I was most of all, unprepared mentally. Like any type of sport, your mentality, determination, and grit pushes you further, and even numbs out the pain and aches that your body feels. This hike was all uphill and elevated. Rocky, wet, hot, cold, dry, grassy, blah blah blah this hike was everything. It was incredibly difficult, yet so beautiful. Every glance was a sight to stop and see. I was most surprised by how fast people were moving. Granted I was stopping to take photos every kilometer or so, but even then the massive 50+ people who signed up with Kyrgyz World (tour group), about 1/3 of the group was gone within the first 20 minutes of the hike. Never to be seen again.
Just kidding. There were three assigned tour guides. Amantur in the first, a second girl in the middle, and a last guide at the end. About 1/3 the way to the lake, I managed to catch up to Amantur for about 5 minute before he left again with the others who matched his speed.
And the picture above is the lake obviously. It took me about 3.5 hours to reach the lake. The most brutal part was the very end. Thats where your mentality kicks in. Either you push yourself hard enough to see the lake, or you don’t. And considering that a very dear friend (Father of 2) signed me up, there was no way I could NOT reach the end. All I really remember is the burn on my quads. The descent down was really interesting as well. I went super fast for two reasons: I was so tired and ready to go home, and because I overheard the same group I was on the bus with talking about me. Maybe it was because I had my fisherman hat on and I took off my NorthFace jacket that I became “unrecognizable” but I was in front of the two groups of young people who came together. I overheard one boy ask a girl what the name of the girl on the bus was. The girl says, “Gloria?” And the boy responds, “No, the other one.” “The one who came alone?” And you know that moment when suddenly you become zeroed in, you tense up and go silent. That was me. I didn’t know if I should walk faster to get away, or slower to hear what they had to say. They didn’t say anything bad about me. Just wondering what kind of tourist I am and what I do. One of the boys says that a lot of bloggers come with tour groups. Considering that I had my digital camera glued to me probably gave off that impression.
I basically ran away from them. Half from embarrassment and half because I wanted to pee really bad and needed to go someplace isolated. After the descent, which only took about an hour or so, I was the first person back in the van. About 5 minutes later, the same group of boys entered. They are young guys about 18 years old. I was sitting right next to them and I overheard the guys talking about me again. They kept saying “Go ask her” to one of their friends. The friend insistently says no. Then I made intentional eye contact with one of them, and he says, “She looked at me!” I figured maybe I could speak up, but I had to play into the “I don’t speak Russian” thing from the morning.
So what did I do? I took my lighter and my Chapman skinny cigarettes and I ran away. Went somewhere far away from the van and smoked. I checked my messages but the internet was shiet so I turned it off to preserve battery.
warm socks cold feet 