Ala-Kul Trek - Day 3

We woke up on day 3 feeling very sore from yesterday's trek, and more sick (peak cold). We again set off straight after breakfast knowing that we wouldn't be walking very fast with both of us feeling under the weather, some large blisters forming and that we still had 14-15km ahead of us. Day 3 was a relatively boring, but easy, walk along a dirt road from Altyn-Arashan to Ak-Suu, with the only challenges being sore muscles from the past two days of hiking and sections of very bumpy 4x4 road conditions. We were joined for a large part of the walk by a stray dog, who we watched roll around in a goat carcass, then rip a leg off the carcass which it carried with it for a few kilometers. After another encounter with some friendly goats, we eventually made it to Ak-Suu where we would catch our marshrutka back to Karakol. We were feeling particularly unwell on day 3, and it was a very nice feeling to check back into our hostel knowing we wouldn't need to walk very far for the next few days. We had some very busy days planned for our 3 weeks in Kyrgyzstan. However, with being sick and tired from the hike, and our hostel in Karakol being one of the nicest and home-liest places we've stayed on this trip so far, we've decided to change our plans and extend our stay in Karakol to rest (and hopefully fully recover from our colds). We've already ticked off a lot of bucket list items for Kyrgyzstan in just one week (kok-boru, Ala-Kul Trek, sleep in a yurt), and hopefully resting will mean we're healthy enough to tick off the last few.Read more