Arslanbob and hitchhiking to Alay mountains

Published: 29.05.2022

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 was taken on the way to Gulcha. I really liked the orange mountains. In the town, we met Max, another German traveler. With him, we visited hot springs he told us about, where there were swimming pools naturally heated.

Then he proceeded to pour lots of water on the stones to make the sauna really hot and humid and allowed one of the dudes who were constantly trying to get in actually to get in, just so he could block the door by holding tight to the door handle. After more water on the stones, he started to yell stuff and rotated a wet bedsheet over our heads. I sat on the highest row and sometimes got it against my head, which he didn't seem to bother, so I started to protect my head with my hands. After more water, three other people each got one end of the sheet, and they swung it up and down over and on our heads. Now everyone was protecting their heads against being hit with a hot wet towel in this hot sauna while the dude kept yelling.

It only lasted ten minutes but was definitely intense enough. We enjoyed it though, and it was for sure an action-sauna.

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.