World Nomad Games – Cholpon Ata

The World Nomad Games are an international sports and cultural festival dedicated to preserving and celebrating ethnic sports, customs, and heritage of nomadic civilizations. Often called the Olympics for Nomads or Central Asian Olympics. The World Nomad Games are held every two years and this year marked the sixth edition of the Games. It has events like Kok Boru (the main sporting event – an equestrian sport similar to polo where two teams of mounted riders fight for possession of a goat carcass and try to score in a raised circular tube), horse archery, yurt building, eagle hunting, and tug of war; as well as intellectual events involving classic Central Asian board games. Ken and I knew that our time in Kyrgyzstan would overlap with the World Nomad Games and made a point to be in the area for at least three days (he was there for five days since he didn’t complete the trek with me). This year’s events mostly took place in Cholpon Ata on Lake Issyk-Kul, the second largest alpine lake in the world. Because of its high salinity and geothermal activity deep below, Issyk-Kul never freezes despite sitting high in the Tian Shan Mountains.

Getting In

After finishing my five day trek, I got into Karakol around 4pm, grabbed a quick bite to eat, then headed to bus station for a shared taxi. Ken told me he got a taxi from the bus station for 1000 som (around $10) per seat so I was hoping that there were still some people willing to share a ride this late in the day. I got lucky that three German guys were waiting for a fourth person and didn’t have to wait at all. I even got the front seat because they all wanted to sit together. Less than five minutes after arriving at the station we were on the road for the two hour drive to Cholpon Ata. This was the easiest commute ever! 

Lodging 

A few weeks back Ken and I had rented a cheap hotel room just outside Cholpon Ata, the city hosting a good portion of the Nomad Games events. The hotel was walking distance from the events and we knew it would be hard to find a place so we had booked it far enough in advance. The hotel had three beds and Ken made friends with an Australian guy, Rollo, when he had been invited to a dinner in Almaty at Kazakhstani Grandma’s house so we were able to split the costs three ways. There was nothing fancy about our triple twin bed hotel room, but we had a private bathroom and a balcony so it satisfied our needs. And it was a huge plus to be a 15 minute walk from the venue that hosted the main horse events like kok boru as well as the wrestling events. 

World Nomad Games

I arrived at 8pm the first night (which was night three of the Games) and on our way to dinner there was a group of Kyrgyz standing around a car that invited us over to take shots of vodka with them while their friend played accordion and they sang traditional songs. This set the tone for the high level energy of the days ahead.

Krygzstan has hosted four of the six editions of the Nomad Games and you can tell the locals take pride in this event. Throughout the weekend they were battling it out with Kazakhstan for gold. In the end, Kyrgyzstan won the most total medals at 77 (30 gold medals) but Kazakhstan finished first in the official gold-medal and overall standing with 74 (32 gold medals). It’s a heated rivalry reminiscent of the Lakers-Celtics in the 80s.

On my first full day of the World Nomad Games, we went hard. Too hard actually. We started drinking at 11am and didn’t stop until 3 in the morning so it was a rager…a little too much because the next day we lied in bed dying all day and didn’t make it out to any events. More on that later. After a Turkish breakfast we picked up a bottle of vodka and poured it into a water bottle to bring with us into the stadium (when the event doesn’t sell alcohol you have to take matters into your own hands). Then we walked over to the horse stadium and watched Tengu Ilu, a horse sport where you reach for bags on the ground and throw them between the flags. I think my cowboy cousin Jo-Bob would be a star if he played this sport. Of course Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan were battling it out for the gold, while Uzbekistan and Mongolia trailed not far behind. Exactly the countries you’d expect to be good at an event like this. 

There was an Australian guy who entered the event on a whim, and we were with Rollo and all his Australian fans cheering like maniacs during his round. We started a bunch of Aussie chants and got on the big screen! Sadly, and not surprisingly, he didn’t do very well and even fell off his horse mid round. But the cheers of the crowd were so loud that they let him do a victory lap around the stadium. The locals were loving the energy. 

We made friends with some of the Aussies and walked with them over to the indoor wrestling arena through swarms of crowds that included people riding their horses as a mode of transportation to go from event to event. You don’t see that at a baseball game. On our way we stopped for a bowl of plov and a coffee. The wrestling events were kind of boring to be honest but it was entertaining to see the size of some of these guys. Some of the Iranian, Mongolian, Kazakh, and Kyrgyz guys made NFL offensive lineman look small. It was also kind of ironic when an Iranian guy faced off against an American guy. Sadly we lost. As a matter of fact we lost every wrestling match. 

We decided to take an intermission from the Games to head back to the hotel and drink a beer (as well as buy another bottle of vodka to bring back in later). Then we went back to the horse to catch the end of America versus Uzbekistan in Kok Boru. If you’re like me, then you had no idea that anyone in America even knew what Kok Boru was. But apparently we have a team consisting of cowboys and ranchers predominantly from Utah. And compared to the Central Asian countries we aren’t very good. Uzbekistan was kicking our ass. However the crowd started a USA chant and everyone was getting behind it. This was a magical moment to hear thousands of people in Kyrgyzstan chant USA. Even during these tense global times, America is still seen as a shining light in many peoples eyes. There was supposed to be another Kok Boru match afterwards but the Hungarian team never showed up and the events of the day were over.  On our way home we got some of the most delicious mantis that I ate in all of Central Asia.

We went back to the hotel to polish off a few more drinks and chat with our Israeli neighbors. It had been a long day of drinking and there was no stopping now. Then we went out to dinner in Cholpon Ata where a 5km Yandex ride took over 30 minutes due heavy traffic after the Games. After dinner, we walked to a nearby club and let’s just say things are pretty hazy at this point and we’ll leave it at that. 

As I mentioned earlier, the next day was an absolute wash after our day one drinking activities. We pretty much lied in bed all day aside from going out to get food. I was a little bummed because our original plans for this day were to take the shuttle bus to the other World Nomad games location 45 minutes up in the mountains where the cultural village was setup with yurts, ethnic bazaars, folklore performances, and culinary hubs; as well as hosting events like horse archery, yurt building, eagle hunting, and tug of war (we met a group of Brits who had friends who entered the tug of war competition for fun. The barrier to entry as an athlete is low. For Central Asian countries the Games is a big deal; for western countries it’s a chance for people to have fun and say they competed). But there was no way any of that was happening after the night before. Ken and Rollo had gone a few days prior so they had already seen it. Sadly I missed that one. Such is the cost of doing business. Rollo ended up leaving that afternoon to head to Bishkek so it was back to just Ken and me.

Day three was the last day of the World Nomad Games and the finals of Kok Boru between you guessed it, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. But first was the finals of Kokpar, a horse event similar to Kok Boru using a goat carcass but with a three meter wide circle drawn flat on the ground rather than a raise circular structure. This version is the Kazakh style and Kok Boru is the Kyrgyz style. The event started at 11 and we made the mistake of showing up at 11. Even though this was the only ticketed event, clearly it didn’t work because it was so crowded in the stadium that we couldn’t find a seat. People were standing on trash cans to try and improve their view. We tried to watch on the sidelines but couldn’t see anything and kept getting pushed. I’ve been to thousands of concerts and don’t get claustrophobic but I felt uncomfortable trying to watch on the sidelines crammed in with so many people.

We quickly decided this wasn’t worth it so we went and sat by the lake for a while then found a fan zone area and watched on the big screen. We popped into the wrestling arena and caught the finals of one event but that was the end of wrestling. After a few more minutes of watching Kok Boru from the fan zone we left to go back home because neither of us really cared. That night was the closing event of the World Nomad Games at the stadium, but we didn’t even have tickets and it was sold out. We should have bought tickets for that event instead of the over crowded Kok Boru finals. Oh well. Overall it was a super fun and unique experience that I’m glad I got to take part in, but I wish I didn’t drink so much day one and squander day two. 

Bishkek

Bishkek is the capital of Kyrgyzstan and most heavily populated city with around 1.3 million people. It really isn’t the most exciting city – a main square and some Soviet style statues, big flag, and a few museums. A fun fact I read is that it is the farthest capital from any ocean or sea coastline in the world. The city served as our home base in between trekking in Ala Archa National Park. The traffic in Bishkek was absolutely horrible. What is this, Mexico City?

Getting In

We took a shared Yandex from Cholpon Ata to Bishkek. Yandex has a nice city to city feature where you can reserve a seat in a car with strangers at a set price and you get a pick up time window. This takes out the stress of the shared taxi haggle. The problem with doing shared rides with Ken is that he has a massive 100L backpack that takes up almost the entire trunk of smaller cars. The driver showed up and this is exactly what happened. There was already another girl in the car and there was no room in the trunk for my stuff. The driver was trying to tell us that Ken would have to pay for an extra seat and he would just cancel on the fourth person. After some back and forth argument I said I would just put my big backpack at my feet and keep my small backpack on my lap. We still had to pick up one more person, but luckily her suitcase was able to be jammed in the trunk. Needless to say it was a highly uncomfortable four hour ride for me. Ken had to sit in the middle next to my giant bag on the floor so it wasn’t great for him, but he really owes me for that one. Halfway into the ride, the driver stopped at a cacería style restaurant that served a bunch of hot dishes that you could select from. It was a real relief when we got to the outskirts of Bishkek and dropped off the girl in the backseat with us. 

Lodging 

We stayed at a homestay that Ken had already spent a few nights at the last time he was in Bishkek so the lady loved him. We spent two nights here before the trek and two nights after. It was a comfy room with a TV and YouTube so we spent a lot of time in our beds watching TV; which was a nice decompression from travel life. 

The night we got back from the trek we ended up getting drunk with these young German kids also staying at the homestay. It started with beer and moved onto vodka. We had a lot of fun drinking and chatting with them, but the next day was a struggle. Originally we had planned to leave for Osh, but we decided to stay another night. This actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise because I looked into the weather in southern Krygzstan on the trek we were planning to do and it was going to be rainy. So I started researching different treks and found the Holy Lakes loop by Arslanbob, a little mountain village north of Osh that I had read about once but it wasn’t even on our radar. This new plan would never have been hatched if not for our lazy hungover day. 

Food 

We were both getting a bit tired of Central Asian food and Bishkek has surprisingly good Korean food. I read that the large Korean population is due to Stalin worrying about them being Japanese spies during WWII so he sent a bunch of Koreans to Central Asian territories to distance them from Japan. Many remained in Bishkek even after the USSR dissolved. We ate Korean fried chicken three times in our four nights in Bishkek.

Wandering Around Town

Other than going out for Korean fried chicken and hitting the mall to shop for groceries for the trek (and I needed some new socks and hiking pants), the only time we left to explore the city was our second afternoon. We braved the shitty traffic and took a Yandex to Ala-Too Square. The buildings had a very plain Soviet style look with a big Krygzstan flag waving in front and some water fountains. We walked through the park and saw the Vladimir Lenin statue, which is a staple landmark of many Central Asian cities.

Then we spent $2 to go to the State History Museum which had two floors of various Russian and Asian artifacts; as well as a historical timeline of Kyrgyzstan from early humans to nomadic tribes to Soviet times to the modern era. Something I found interesting was that they call World War II “The Great Patriot War” and the dates are from 1941-1945, starting the year Germany invaded the USSR, rather than in 1939 when Germany invaded Poland as we know it lol. I guess it all just depends which side of history you are taught.

After the museum we walked to a craft beer bar to have a few drinks, but on the way I decided to try a mystery street dairy drink. In both Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan every few blocks has people with a small stand selling three different color barrels of beverages – red, blue, and brown. I had been curious about it so I decided to blindly try the blue barrel. The only question I asked the lady was “is it cold” because I was curious what temperature I’d be drinking. She nodded yes. I took a sip and was immediately hit with a very sour taste reminiscent of the camel milk I drank in Almaty. It was rough. But I spent a good $0.40 on this beverage so I wasn’t going to let it go to waste; and luckily I ordered the small. It actually grew on me and I didn’t hate it by the end of the cup (nor did I love it. Plus the taste lingered in my mouth for a while). Upon researching afterwards, the blue barrel is called chalap shoro – a tangy and slightly fizzy yogurt drink made from süzmö (strained fermented yogurt/curd), water, and salt. Hmmm interesting. Definitely don’t need to try that one again. I wanted to eventually try the others but ultimately never did. My loss. 

Three Days Trekking in Ala Archa National Park – 15.87 miles; 7,913 feet elevation gain and loss

Ala Archa National Park lies less than 45 minutes from the city of Bishkek with premier high alpine access in the Tian Shan mountains. The nature reserve was established in 1976 and the park spans over 160 square kilometers of pristine, untouched wilderness with more than 20 glaciers in the park and 56 glaciers in the Ala Archa river basin and valley system. The park can even be reached from the city by bus but we decided to take a $7 Yandex.

Day 1 – Adygene Lake – 7.2 miles; 5,072 feet elevation gain; 394 feet elevation loss

It was a beautiful blue bluebird day with no clouds and the crisp smell of autumn in the air. The trees were in their early stages of changing colors with some starting to get yellow and red leaves. While we gained a lot of elevation throughout the day, it was mostly a continuos moderately steep uphill through the valley along the river. At this point my legs had gotten so strong from the last few treks that I hardly even noticed that we gained 5,000 feet of elevation with our packs; especially since the incline never got too steep. 

Ken and I had a good rhythm and flow to the day staying mostly silent in our hiking worlds keeping a strong a pace. We ran into a few other groups of people, mostly locals that were day hiking to and from the lake. Long day! We were glad to chunk it out into multiple days. Plus we had plans to climb a mountain peak the following morning. 

The last mile before camp had two short, steep uphill rocky sections that required a little more leg strength and mental focus but we still raced up the hill with ease. We were still about a half mile below Adygene Lake but Maps.Me showed this area as the campsite. It was rocky, but at least it was flat, and we didn’t know what the terrain at the lake would look like so we settled here. Our tent stakes were somewhat useless so we used large rocks as stakes instead. There wasn’t a reliable water source by camp because it had dried up to a trickle, so we brought all our water bottles and containers to stock up at the lake. While we were setting up camp these two teens from Bishkek were coming down from the lake and offered us a loaf of bread. Sure, why not!

After setting up camp, we continued to Adygene Lake. It was only another half mile but the entire way was boulder hopping so it took longer than expected. At least we didn’t have our large backpack on anymore, and the boulders were stable, so it was actually a fun traverse. The high alpine turquoise blue lake was well worth the effort and it had a beautiful backdrop of jagged mountains and snowy glaciers. 

There were some weather vanes and A frame cabins in front of the lake, but everything was locked up. Even though the area surrounding the lake was very rocky, we found the perfect campsite by the A frame cabins – flat and grassy. Damn! That would have been nice. Oh well we didn’t know. We enjoyed the views for a bit then filled up on water and headed back to camp.

It was nearly night time at this point when two more Bishkek teens came out of nowhere and approached our camp. They were coming down from Adygene Peak (the one we planned to do the following day) and heading all the way back to Bishkek in one day. They had already been on trail almost 13 hours and still had a few more hours of downhill to go. Absolute legends! They stopped at our campsite to eat their dinner then gave us the rest of their canned meat. It looked like dogfood but actually tasted pretty good. “I didn’t know we were having a steak dinner tonight” – Ken. We gave them some candy as a thank you for the canned meat. 

Day 2 – Adygene Peak – 3.85 miles; 2,841 feet elevation gain and loss 

We had a slow start to the morning as we waited for the cold air to warm up and the sun to hit our tents. Once again it was a beautiful blue sky with no clouds so we didn’t have to rush. Although we were climbing a peak so we also wanted to get going at a reasonable hour. We hiked up a rocky gully out of camp then there was a small uphill section with a dirt trail before we were back in the rocks for the next six hours. There was no such thing as stable ground today; the terrain was challenging right from the start. The distance to the top of the peak was less than two miles so Adygene Peak presented itself early on in the hike. It looked slightly intimidating with its steep rock face in the front and scree field mountain pass to the right with a ridge line leading to the peak. 

We’d done a lot of backcountry hiking so far in the Stans, but this would be our first time summiting a peak. We’ll see how it looks when we get closer. It was a short distance but required 3,000 feet of elevation gain on rocky terrain, over a scree field, and across a ridge line so it was going to be a slow burner. 

As we worked our way through the rocky basin and got closer to the mountain pass, there was a massive glacier to the left of the peak. So cool to still see that much snow in the beginning of September. Even though these mountains are similar height to Colorado, they are much more heavily glaciated.

We approached the bottom of the mountain pass and had to go up a mixture of loose scree and medium sized boulder to reach the top of the pass. It was challenging but since we had light day packs it really wasn’t too bad and went by rather quickly. The mountain views off in the distance were starting to get better. 

We reached the mountain pass and stopped for lunch. The views of the ridge line leading to the top of the peak were intimidating but sometimes it looks even scarier from down below than when you are actually doing it. The ridge is usually (keyword usually) much wider when you get up closer and there is a route that appears that you couldn’t see from down below.

Ken and I have done a lot of mountain peaks and ridge lines together so we felt confident. Plus we have a rule where if one guy starts feeling uncomfortable about the situation then it’s time to turn back. The other thing we always remind ourselves is whatever you climb up, you have to be confident to climb down. Because typically the down climb is harder; especially when you’re dealing with loose rocks. The first section was fairly straight forward on a mixture of crushed scree and medium rocks, similar to what we did going up the mountain pass; just less wide open. Then we got into more of the boulders and rock scrambling that required us to use our hands. Luckily there were rock carins all along the way that gave us guidance and showed us the best route to take. I was always keeping my eyes forward for the next set of rock carins. This type of hiking, or mountaineering really, requires an extreme level of focus and the mind is working on hyperdrive with an incredible rush of adrenaline. This whole section was very challenging but there was never a moment that felt outside either of our abilities and comfort zone.

After an hour and fifteen minutes of scrambling and route finding and one false peak, we reached the 14,412 foot high summit and were greeted with some of the best mountain views I’ve ever seen.

There was an insane amount of peaks; and what was even more crazy is how many glaciers there were. We were at the same height as most of the fourteeners in Colorado but you never get glacial views like this. And this is late summertime too; after months of hot and dry weather. It was spectacular! And on top of it all we had beautiful bluebird skies and almost no wind. We were able to sit at the top and enjoy the scene for almost an hour. Even though Bishkek isn’t my favorite city, it’s pretty cool that you have this amazing of mountain access so close by. 

Of course getting to the summit is just the first part. It was a long way downhill on rocky terrain of all different shapes and sizes. The downhill is worse than the uphill on these types of hikes. But the old adage slow and steady holds very true for this type of down climb. We knew everything we had done to go up and retraced our steps from where we came; taking it nice and slow to prevent any injuries or excessive rockfall. It was a long arduous process which required even more concentration than the uphill climb. I was relieved when we made it back to the mountain pass because we made it down the hardest section, but the fun wasn’t over yet. We still had this mixture of loose scree/medium boulder downhill on steep terrain to conquer. It wasn’t the most pleasant experience but we made it work. We also took a quick detour, you know an easy 20 minute hop along loose boulders, to go to the glacier and refill our waters since camp wasn’t next to a water source (the alternative would have been to head to the lake from the day before after we got back to camp and that didn’t sound like something we wanted to do). The boulders by the glaciers were extra loose and unstable because the structural ice and permafrost that used to bound them has been melting so we had to be extra careful here. 

After our trip to the glacier it was smooth sailing. We still had a mixture of medium rocks and dirt path for the final mile but at least we were on somewhat steady ground. We were almost back at camp when we ran into a Russian family. The son, a guy around our age, spoke great English and we chatted it up. The mother offered us sausage and cheese, some hard boiled eggs, a can of foie gras, and a chocolate bar. Yet another example of the hospitality we encountered on trail. The U.S. and Russia have had many years of political differences, but on the ground level we as people all get along. There was no tension between us on a trail in the middle of nowhere Krygzstan. 

We got back to camp riding high from the incredible day we had summiting Adygene Peak. It was a challenging peak that required constant focus and attention the entire day we were on trail, so it was nice to finally kick back and relax at camp. These two Kyrgyz teens showed up and camped right next to us. They were doing a different mountain peak the following morning. One that we had also considered stacking on but one peak was good enough; we were ready for a chiller downhill day. They were nice young kids full of energy who spoke pretty good English and were stoked to chat with us. We were both tired from our day on trail but tried to be friendly and conversational. 

While we were chatting another group came up that was quite an odd couple – a French girl who was a journalist working in Krygzstan currently writing a piece on glaciers, a Kyrgyz scientist, and a photographer (not sure from where). We chatted with them for a bit but they were headed up to Lake Adygene to sleep in the A frame cabins for the evening. Ahhh so that’s how you get the key; come with a local scientist. Never a dull moment in these mountains! Ken and I crashed early that night.

Day 3 – Return – 4.82 miles; 0 feet elevation gain; 4,619 feet elevation loss 

We woke up the next morning and noticed a few things were displaced while eating breakfast. We had seen some marmots and pikas the previous days and thought maybe they got up to no good. We packed our tents and all the sudden Ken realized he couldn’t find his hiking shoes or his hat. Damn marmots did him dirty!! His hiking shoes were incredibly out and worn out so he had been talking about getting new ones before our next trek, but the universe made that decision for him. His only backpack pair of footwear was his Keane sandals that were missing the backs because they were also old and worn out. He was furious…understandably so. We looked around  the camp area with no success. I guess this is why you don’t leave your shoes outside your tent. I got really lucky because my shoes were also outside under my tent vestibule. I would have had to hike down in my Brazilian Havaianas rubber flip flops. After a few more curses words, Ken decided it was a lost cause and we were off. 

We had to go back down what we went up the first day. Luckily most of it was just a moderate decline but the first mile had some steep downhill on rocky terrain that was no fun for Ken in his warm out Keanes. He went really slowly, as expected, but to his credit he made it down. While I was waiting for him at the bottom of this section I spotted a group of ibex climbing up the mountain in the distance. I used the 25x zoom on my iPhone to somewhat capture them. This was the first wildlife we’d seen on trail outside of marmots and pikas; and of course we’d seen a number of livestock animals like cows, horses, and sheep. Sadly no snow leopard yet. 

After we got down the hard section, I let Ken lead for the moderate decline so that I didn’t get too far ahead and make him even more pissed about his footwear. He actually handled it like a champ and lost his sour mood quickly into the day. As we got further into the valley, the color of the leaves had seemingly changed even more since we were here two days before. The reds and yellows looked a little brighter and more widespread. The whole day was downhill and we made it back to the main road before 1pm, caught the free shuttle to the entrance of the park, and took a Yandex back to our homestay. It was a great three day trek and nice to stay camped at the same place for two of the nights as well as knock out a Kyrgyzstani fourteener.