21.7.2001 The Climb Begins

Cass writes…

Out of Jalal-Abad, the road turns to gravel and swivels east, facing a blockade of mountains, rising sheer and craggy in the distance. At just eight hundred metres in altitude, we can hardly imagine our trail will find its way through this natural wall to Kazarman. Lying on the other side of the Fergana Range, it's just one three thousand metre pass of many that link this crumpled country.

Passing a string of fields and villages home to de-collectivised collectives, it's a peaceful scene; horses, calves, donkeys and cows all tethered before ramshackle homes with orchard gardens and rusty, creaking gates. 'Hoopa!' is the cry of surprise the kids call out as we pass, playing by natural springs as their mother's dust off the family shyrdaks - Kyrgyzstan's beautiful felt carpets embroidered with colourful, swirling motifs.

Dipping briefly into a gorge, we fend off an invitation from a car full of inebriated drivers to spend the night - 'Be careful out here' they warn. 'There are too may drunks!' Then the climb begins, zigzagging towards a ridge that opens onto a plain of sunflowers, each huge flower head swivelled around in Synchronicity to catch the last rays of the sun, their canary yellow petals flashes of colour against the earthy background. In the distance, layers of mountain outlines - a spectrum of lavender and lilac - prelude the pass that awaits. Below, a river meanders gently, a village tucked into the valley side. Everyone' s heading home from their day in the fields - a man on horseback whistling, a family crammed into the sidecar of a spluttering Ural, three children on a donkey.

Pitching our tent on a headland overlooking the panorama, we cook up a bowl of pasta and prepare for tomorrow's climb.