Today’s mission was Kolsai Lake 2! Reportedly a 16km, 6 hour, round trip through some beautiful but relatively challenging terrain. The reports were pretty accurate apart from it was nearer 20km. It took us around 6.5 hours with some pretty good time stopping and looking at the views. Which were more awesome than imaginable!

Most the hike is what the boys refer to as Peru flat. A kind of undulating up and down but with an overall steady elevation gain. The last 1.5km however is pretty dam steep up very muddy horse tracks. Most of the hike was perfect temperatures but we did get nailed by the occasional hail storm.

The second lake was of course beautiful but overall the experience of the hike and the views along it were certainly the highlight.

Absolutely shattered but content we headed back to Saty in search of food! Not much on Google maps so we stumbled into a local place with seating outside. It was delicious! The boys smashed multiple portions of veg and meat.

All in all a fabulous day, which the boys finished off playing football surrounded by yurts.

They say travel is full of ups and downs … well Lake 2 was definitely and up…. Unfortunately the next day was definitely a down.

It started well enough with a yummy breakfast in a yurt. But even though we were expecting a slightly stressful day, as it was boarder crossing day.. it turned into a very stressful day.

About to load the car… we hit the first problem. The car wouldn’t start. It’s battery completely dead! Trying to stay calm we attempted to jump start the car with the supplied leads but to no avail. After 15mins still no luck so our very kind host borrowed some fancy looking leads from another guest, and voila the car started.

With strict instructions to not turn the car off for at least 3 hours we set off to the boarder. The road to Keagan as smooth as all the other roads we soon arrived at the boarder town… but our 3 hours not yet up… we managed to refuel with the engine running 🫣 and then spent the next 30mins unsuccessfully driving from bank to bank trying to exchange our money to Kyrgyzstan SOMS.

As our 3 hours was up we headed to the boarder. The actual process of crossing the boarder was really smooth apart from now the car wouldn’t turn off! Even with it in lock mode and the key removed it wouldn’t turn off. The very bemused immigration officer was patient and just as confused by the car as us.

Once successfully over the boarder we had a list of issues to sort out… 1) hazard lights constantly flashing 2) an engine that wouldn’t turn off 3) no internet/phone 4) no money

The boarder we had crossed was very remote and for the first few kilometres all we could do is keep driving with hazards flashing. Luckily we came across a hut about 10km from the boarder with a phone sign out side… this life saver hut not only helped us to get money changed and get new SIM cards, the owner also managed to get our hazards to stop flashing!

Unfortunately the car engine still wouldn’t switch off, so after contacting the rental company we had only one choice… and that was a detour to a mechanic. Compounded by the fact the roads quickly deteriorated as we got further from Kazakhstan, said detour ended up being over 3 hours… making a total of over 10 hours of travelling.

Luckily though the mechanic managed to fix the issue in less than an hour and after what felt like endless roadworks we did make it to our next stop Jyrgalan.

So this day was definitely a down of travel but finally the boys enjoyed burning off their energy running and playing football while the sunset behind our yurts.