Arslanbob and hitchhiking to Alay mountains

Hanna and I went for another hike in Arslanbob, and this one proved to be really challenging! We gained 1300m of altitude, and sometimes the inclination was 45°. We met plenty of cows and horses along the way. There were a few locals minding their own business, but apart from that, we had the entire mountain to ourselves.

The picture above shows the 'holy rock'. We didn't figure out what it was holy for, but there was a ladder, so I guess it's okay that we climbed it.

I carried the hammock with me to spend some more time at higher altitudes to get better acclimatized for heights. It was lovely just above the river 🤩

We then hitchhiked to Gulcha, which is on the way to Sary-Mogol. Sary Mogol is between the Alay and the Pamir mountains. Both are incredible mountain ranges with peaks over 7000m! The town itself is already at 3000m.

And there was a sauna, which was super crazy. A Kyrgyzian guy told everyone who went in that the door will stay shut for at least ten minutes and yelled at everyone (mainly teenagers) who wanted to get in that the door stays shut. We didn't understand a word, but we understood what he said 😂

After that, we continued hitchhiking on the same day and were really lucky with it! We got to Sary-Mogol on the same evening. We found a place to sleep and went during the next morning to a basecamp in the mountains. I'll write the next entry about these mountains in a few days. It's super crazy here!

A little spoiler: This is where I slept.