a photo journal
Some views have to be earned. Ala-Kul, the "Motley Lake", lies at around 3,500m in the glaciated heart of the Terskey Ala-Too, reached only on foot after a long climb up the Karakol valley. The reward at the top is a sheet of impossible turquoise, hemmed by scree and snow, that shifts colour with every passing cloud.
Kyrgyzstan's trekking capital sits where the steppe runs out and the Tian Shan begins. Karakol is a low-rise huddle of Tsarist cottages, an Orthodox cathedral of carved wood and a pagoda-roofed Dungan mosque. A Silk Road crossroads that still holds a roaring animal market every Sunday. Just up the valley, the red cliffs of Jeti-Oguz mark the threshold of the high country.