T-Rex Versus The Cows
A new day and new perspective on the place. Yes, it still looked like a Russian prison camp but in the morning the skies had cleared revealing a beautiful landscape of mountains and hills around us. Altyn-Arashan is located at 3000m and is a beautiful green meadow below many picture perfect mountains, Pik Palatka being the largest at 4260m!
In the morning we said goodbye to a sheep that mysteriously got tied up to a fence by us. We started off on a trek around 9 am to find a beautiful alpine lake with snow capped mountains as a backdrop. However, this is a lake that we never would actually find.
Winding through the hills we aren't still sure which way the guy told us to go. However, the path by the stream looked beautiful and not too strenuous. We were all still a bit sore from the waterfall hike a few days earlier.
About two hours into our hike we found this very safe looking bridge to cross. This one was best done with your eyes closed, not.
Altyn-Arashan is a nature reserve and is said to have twenty some snow leopards still left out in the wild. During Soviet times the number was higher but of course they trapped them and sent them to zoos. Today these 20 remain and will hopefully bring the population back up over the years.
Despite not seeing any exotic animals there was a plethora of horses, cows, goats, and sheep. I have been seeing many sheep, goats, and cows roaming around with a Shepard nearby herding. It still excites me every time and I do a double take how there are no fences during the day keeping them in.
Seeing horses graze freely is a whole other matter. Beautiful strong horses grazed, galloped, and laid in the luscious grass throughout the meadows.
After a few hours we found a rock to sit and eat lunch on. On either side of us towering peaks poked the sky before us. Have I mentioned how much I love mountains?
A herd of cattle roamed nearby. I contemplated putting on my T-Rex suit and running through the cows but my common sense got the better of me. Of course that would be a bad idea, what if they came at me instead. Mike, a cow veterinarian, insisted that cows would be too afraid of me to do anything.
With a little persuading I put on the costume and approached the cows. They immediately jumped up one after another and the herd began to retreat while Mike, Julien, Lee, and Gen looked on.
Then out of nowhere 5 cows, mothers to babies running as fast away from me as possible, turned the tables. Ahhh! The five of them began to approach me. Now I was the running cow. I unzipped and ran down the hillside as fast as possible. While the others backed off one stubborn mom continued to have a stand off with us. Thankfully Julien and Mike knew how to stand their ground and get her away.
Lesson learned, cows will defend their babes even if it's a T-Rex!
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