Issyk Köl

The three of us went to Issyk Köl for a few days during our vacation and had a wonderful time.

This was at a rest stop along the way

We stayed in the little town of Tamchi. It was nice and peaceful and there weren't too many people. The water was wonderful! after having craved it all summer :)

This was the little place we stayed at. Very nice people

Our room

Morning on the beach

This little kisu lived at our place. He was so cute and really feisty. He absolutely loved Emily's sweater :D

Bish Barmak night

We had some students over for a Kazakh dinner right after Rebekah got back. It was great. We tasted horse meat for the first time. It's not bad, once you get over the thought of it :)

This is Kazy, horse meat in horse intestine

Our house was full. 17 people in all

Joe, the american we found in the mountains the day before

the ladies

Rebekah about to taste horse

Kumyz, fermented mares milk

Dessert of melon, apple pie, bauyrsak and cake, mmmm...

All of us

Kumbeltau

Our group: Emily, Ismail, Rebekah, Roman, Anton and me

this is the mountain we climbed

Kok-Töbe

Kok Zhailau

the ridge after a hefty climb up the side of the mountain

horses

The first of the three brothers

Ismail

Cool rocks

Emily at the top, about 3200m

Long hike

We went on a really long hike with a bunch of students, all the way up to underwear man's hut. He wasn't there though. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time.

Zhanat, Liza and Aigerim

Bakhtiyar

Aizhan

Ismail

Nazira

A cool swing

BAO again

Emily and I hiked up to Big Almaty Lake one Friday afternoon while Rebekah was gone. It was serious hiking and we ran into some friendly guardmen who for 45 min tried to extract a few hundred bucks out of us for passing a sign that wasn't there. Complicated. But we prevailed, praise the Lord, and got back home in time for work. Met a few nice drivers along the way too and didn't have to pay for taxis either way. It was beautiful.