Hanna and me went for another hike in Arslanbob, this one proved to be really challenging! We gained 1300m of altitude, sometimes the inclination was 45°. We met plenty of cows and horses on the way. There were a few locals minding their own business but apart of that we had the entire mountain for 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 ok 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 in between the Alay and the Pamir mountains. Both are incredible mountain ranges with peaks over 7000m! The town itself is already at 3000m.The picture above was taken on the way to Gulcha, I really liked the orange mountains. In the town we met Max, another German traveller. With him we visited hot springs he told us about, there were swimming pools, naturally heated.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 yet understood what he said 😂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 for and rotated a wet bed sheet 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 3 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 beeing 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 in a few days the next entry about these mountains, its super crazy here!
