For whatever reason, it’s often the places where I have the most transformative experiences that get the least amount of screen time on this blog. I think it’s because I can never really find the right words to do a place or experience I really love justice. It’s happened in the past – there’s a reason why you don’t see any posts about things to do and see in Tbilisi or Seoul here. But, having just written an account about nature that terrified me, I thought it would be best to get my thoughts down about our time in the high Kyrgyz Pamir, where we were fortunate enough to take a three-day trek last September while we were in Kyrgyzstan.
The Pamirs, or, more specifically, the Trans Alay range, in Kyrgyzstan don’t have much in common with the dense jungle rainforest of Suriname on paper, but to me the two represent similar types of experiences. The uniting thread is that of dominance of the natural over the man-made. Our time in the Pamirs of Kyrgyzstan, between Turpal Kol, Peak Lenin Base Camp, and Tuyuk Valley, wasn’t as daunting as in the dense jungle, I think due to the vast expanses of land visible from every vantage point. This isn’t to say that obstacles didn’t exist – just in this case the antagonist was altitude over 12,000 feet, whereas in Suriname it was the hypothetical threat of creepy crawlies in every nook and cranny. Read more
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been captivated by Central Asia. My father runs an antique rug store in the Seattle area, and since I was a wee child I’ve been surrounded by Central Asian textiles, from Uzbek suzanis to Kyrgyz shyrdaks. For one reason or another, I’ve yet to make it to the region from whence these textiles came, but that is about to change. David and I are heading on our second trip of the year – to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. And I couldn’t be more excited about it.
