Muscat to Almaty via Abu Dhabi was not that much of a problem, I got a taxi to the hostel door on arrival and was able to have a short walk around the city and an easy evening followed by an early night.
First full day was looking around Almaty itself going up the nearby hill where apparently the only statue of the Beatles is located. The rest of the area was like a kids fairground.
It felt very similar to Bishkek which I had been the previous year, but cleaner and a lot more modern buildings. I spent an hour trying to find a map at the tourist information office as they had none at the hostel. Seen a few landmarks and made several stop offs for food, shade and water as it was still hot. Left a few things to see for later on in the trip.
Had a few problems with trying to book trips with the hostel, a sign said people wanted one extra person to go to the canyon which I made enquiries about but only got vague answers such as “might be going tomorrow”. So I arranged to go to big Almaty lake with an American in my dorm room.
The plan was to walk to a park then get a taxi from there but after an hour or more in the midday heat we ended up getting a taxi. It was a case of paying the driver to wait for us for around 90 minutes at the top. It turned out to be a bit of a costly day out!!!!
The scenery at the top was good however…………….
Evenings were fairly quiet at the hostel, interesting people to talk to but given it’s location on the edge of town it was a case of having a quiet beer in the common room. Myself and the American did get an Irish motorcyclist to join us on the trip to the canyon the following morning. His blog is here…..
We did however still have to get the very unreliable hostel to sort it out and as of 7:30 the following morning we were still unsure as if it was to actually be going or not. It did and the 3 of us were crammed in the back of a car with some very strange old German bloke in the front and of course the driver.
A mini grand canyon would be a good description, we had the whole place to ourselves and spent roughly an hour out in the hot sun. The driver seemed to have park strategically in a place where we couldn't walk too far from the car. It would have been good to get the view from the bottom as well.
Then it was the long uncomfortable journey back to Almaty, some of the scenery was good but also a lot of empty grassland as well. Had a little scare with the tyre pressure but got back ok in the end. Back at the hostel we all agreed that it was a great place to visit but questioned if it was worth spending the best part of 7 hours in total stuck in the back of a car.
A proper pub or bar was one thing yet to be done on the trip so I headed out for a couple with Irish John to a couple of pubs down the hill. The Shakespeare pub followed by the Guinness pub, nothing heavy but good to get out at night.
Final full day and 3 of us The American, a German girl and myself got the bus for the short ride to the ski resort. To be honest it was just a place that I didn’t really think about as I had the lake and the canyon as my priorities but ultimately turned out to be the best place on the trip.
We got the cable car thinking we were near the top then started walking up but after a slow couple of hours discovered another cable car. Unfortunately we didn’t have and couldn’t buy tickets for the next car at that point but somehow the German girl talked the cable car operator into letting us in for nothing.
The only day I needed warm clothes was the only day on the trip I forgot to bring them fortunately we were only at the top for about 20 minutes. 3200M above sea level was my own altitude record. It was a good day out, we stopped for food at a massively overpriced restaurant where I tried a sip of the fermented camel's milk it was horrible. Imagine slightly fizzy slightly sour milk.
We went for a last walk around Almaty before heading back to the hostel for food. Left early the next morning for the long flight home.
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