"Nothing good ever comes of this ...", is the lapidary formula with which an Italian monk sentenced to the Mughals in the darkest era of the West.
A horse race, from the heart of the cold steppes of Asia, a stroke had swept empires and legendary cities, carrying out some of the largest population movements in history.
Along with the Mughals, pushing the limits of classical China, by the Tien-Shan, the "celestial mountains" of Chinese legend, Several groups came from the basins of the great Siberian rivers, as the Yenisei. Same culture, same customs, although different language. Forty families of the mythical national consciousness that comes from a village changing, go Kirgizes (Kirk Iz, in their language, means just that, forty branches ...).
A Silk Road in ruins welcomed them as robbers and guides, and in this unique landscape in Asia, where mountains 7000 meters up above the plains and lakes of great beauty, bonded a series of myths that have shaped one of the most incredible epics of world literature, Manas, the exploits of a hero maybe real ...
That means the mountain passes through which we may be snowed in and we can not continue to the base of mountaineers Inylchek
Move to step through the valley of Karkara, border between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan today, a limit imposed by Stalin to the same people. The sky is leaden and the snow is announced in the cold wind hit us back. The horses are impatient and Ari, my guide, with them. We are in June and almost no yurts, typical felt tents of the Kirghiz, in the valley. That means the mountain passes through which we may be snowed in and we can not continue to the base of mountaineers Inylchek, at the foot of one of the largest glaciers in Asia.
Dark shapes move across the sky. Eagles Dorada in search of the marmots foxes, the only permanent inhabitants of the valley. Behind, long distance, a starving wolf following us for two days. One of the mares that we bleed, and the wolf has been following the trail of blood on the bare rocks. Ari is not worried. "One is not a problem and if left to see. The problem is not seeing them, "says. For me, Figure animal, inspires a little sorry. Yesterday, while dismounted camp, I left a piece of bacon on a stone, While the light, for the wolf. Maybe I do not care but.
Behind, long distance, a starving wolf following us for two days
Continuing down the valley, when it turns suddenly to the left between orange lichen-covered rocks, that give the landscape a strange, appears the first yurt. A girl comes out to greet us with a huge mastiff, barking beyond us, where the wolf is gone. Caring for his grandfather while his parents pick up their horses in the highlands of the valley, takes us to his yurt. His grandfather, crossed his face a map of valleys and gorges like I've never seen, We look pleased as the little tea in a samovar prepared archaic. A salty tea, boiling, but it makes you relive. I tasted the buttermilk, fermented mare's milk, A few days ago gave me diarrhea in a place like this was, at least, uncomfortable ....
The old speaks with Ari, said last winter in his village down the valley and the next summer. Few even yurts, but come, and the road is open to the military base of Sary Djaz, where an illusory military camp set up by the Soviets kept the border with China,, it is only a few kilometers, through the peaks and eternal glaciers. Toda a natural frontera, the best conception of the term.
The next day we began the ascent of a hill, moving with the huge eagles on each side of the canyon that holds the upper step
The next day we began the ascent of a hill, moving with the huge eagles on each side of the canyon that holds the upper step. And at the end, in a plateau peeled, little by little, as we gain height, peaks of the Tien-Shan are marching in a clear sky full of snow crystals. Winning the hill, across the passage, An icy wind cuts us step, with the huge valley of Sary Djaz at our feet and the silhouette of the "Lord of Heaven", el Mitico Khan Tengri, the 7000 meters, an almost perfect pyramid marble, before us. Sary Djaz means "Spring Amarilla". "It's cold there tantio, that the grass never turns green. Goes from white to yellow dry overnight. Very cold ". But the incredible view deserves.
Step down a track pierced by military trucks, a herd of yaks looks at us with surprise. We camped in sight of Camp, where the red star of yesteryear still guards the door of the place and where a very young recruits (led by a Russian captain who does not reach the thirty) ask us funny papers at the unexpected visit.
And here we camped, against a sunset where the Mountains of Asia, capitalized, dress in red and the temperature drops to-peak. And where, leaving another piece of food on a rock, the only one seen in this sea of ??yellow grass, becomes the wolf behind a hill. A wild time, another, one of the most beautiful places I've ever known. Celestial Mountains, the heart of Asia, the warmth of a yurt and silences laden with stories of the Kirghiz, the children of the warrior Manas.
