Driving around the lake our first stop this morning was the Petrolyphs in Cholpon-Ata. It costs about a dollar to get in. From there we walked around looking at the ancient rock carvings. The first one that we saw was by far the most impressive. On a pretty large rock was a petroglyph depicting tame snow leopards hunting ibex. It's hard to believe that these drawings dated starting in the Bronze Age of 1500 BC until 1st century AD. The majority of them were thought to be carved by the Saka-USun who lived in the area before the arrival of Kyrgyz nomads. This group of people had their settlement in one of the areas that has now been over taken by the lake that I had previously mentioned.
After studying the snow leopard we did about a 40 minute walk around looking at the other stones. Not going to lie, the put the best one up front to attract visitors. Some of the rocks I could barely make out a caravan of camels or an ibex after reading the sign. Others looked like nothing more than a few light scribbles. We all joked about some of them as we walked around.
One thing that was stunning was the backdrop of the lake and the mountains on the return walk. My favorite few so far! We headed down to the lake to take a quick bath and wash off our bodies. The water was not nearly as cold as the river and everyone splashed around excitedly.
Our destination for the day Semyonovka village in the Kichi Ak-Su valley which means little. Arriving there we set up camp and some people went off for walks to explore the area. After the previous hikes and activities I decided to take an afternoon to relax on my big air sack and to read. I feel asleep for a little snooze and what did I wake up to? Well cows roaming through all of our tents and campsite of course!
They hung around for awhile grazing around. Nothing surprises me anymore in this land of nomads and animals.
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