B - reporting
We finally found the coffee shop we'd been looking for the entire time we were in Almaty! Had fantastic latte and chocolate croissant and didn't want to leave.
Then stocked up on essentials (peanut butter, chocolate, beer...and some veg) and headed east, to Charyn Canyon. It was a really hazy day, the smog obscuring the southern mountains. Apparently Almaty is really prone to smog, probably from the smoke belching from all the trucks and also the millions of roadside shashlik stalls. We were never sure if a huge cloud of smoke heralded delicious kebabs, or a car on fire.
The road was really busy, and quite slow as there are hundreds of small towns...and we got our first speeding ticket by overtaking a truck just as we entered the town, argh! So we were super-careful driving on, as the signs indicating the town are quite small and often obscured by trees, bushes, donkeys etc.
The fertile green valley led into a dusty flat plain, then a 10km dirt road and the Canyon! It is v spectacular, all shades of red plunging deep to a rushing river. We paid to camp down by the river, and the park ranger led us in his 4x4 Lada to the really steep track down. (the one Ewan and Charlie couldn't drive). However in trusty Swiss we managed fine and found a lovely spot by the river, in time for beer o'clock.
We finally found the coffee shop we'd been looking for the entire time we were in Almaty! Had fantastic latte and chocolate croissant and didn't want to leave.
Then stocked up on essentials (peanut butter, chocolate, beer...and some veg) and headed east, to Charyn Canyon. It was a really hazy day, the smog obscuring the southern mountains. Apparently Almaty is really prone to smog, probably from the smoke belching from all the trucks and also the millions of roadside shashlik stalls. We were never sure if a huge cloud of smoke heralded delicious kebabs, or a car on fire.
The road was really busy, and quite slow as there are hundreds of small towns...and we got our first speeding ticket by overtaking a truck just as we entered the town, argh! So we were super-careful driving on, as the signs indicating the town are quite small and often obscured by trees, bushes, donkeys etc.
The fertile green valley led into a dusty flat plain, then a 10km dirt road and the Canyon! It is v spectacular, all shades of red plunging deep to a rushing river. We paid to camp down by the river, and the park ranger led us in his 4x4 Lada to the really steep track down. (the one Ewan and Charlie couldn't drive). However in trusty Swiss we managed fine and found a lovely spot by the river, in time for beer o'clock.
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