Day 10: Excursion to Medeu
On Fridays we don't have school. Instead, we go on hiking excursions to various places in the city. The excursion for this week was located in the south, in the mountains nearby Medeu, the place in which the international concert Star of Asia took place. Our excursion started at 9:00AM and ended at around 6:00PM and we walked over 12 km, so it was quite a journey! While waiting at the bus stop for the bus that would take us to Medeu, some Kazakh children approached Pflugy and asked to take some pictures with him.
The bus ride took about 40 minutes and on the way, an elderly Russian man was conversing with Janna, Monika, and I. He was speaking in English and we would respond in Russian. Eventually, we got to the final bus stop at Medeu and started to head over to the hiking path as a group. Due to the large size of our group, we split up and went in separate buses. My group was the first to arrive, so we found a spot to wait in for the other group to catch up with us and waited for about 15 minutes.
After the second group arrived, we went on our way throughout the hike. It was a wonderful hike with beautiful scenery. Everywhere you looked was filled with greenery and life! We hiked and hiked on and on until we reached a split in the path where we could choose to either return to the city, which would take 3 hours, or we could go to the waterfall, which would take an additional 2 hours. Of course, I chose to go to the waterfall.
It was a really long hike, but when we made it to the waterfall, it was so refreshing and such a beautiful sight. We spent a great deal of time resting here and took a group photo before returning back home. We met some new animal friends on the way back to the city and had to watch our steps, so as to not step into horse droppings; earlier in the hike, someone slipped on fresh droppings and soiled his shoes and shirt.
On the way back home, we took the bus 29P. The 29th bus takes me back home, so I believed that I was on the right path. At a stop, however, everyone went off the bus and I should have taken that as a red flag. After 10 minutes, the bus continued on, bus a while later, it took some wrong turns. When I looked at 2GIS (navigation app), it turns out that I was going the wrong way, back to Medeu! I got off the next stop and went on the ACTUAL 29th bus. This bus was PACKED and I had to stuff my body into the crowd of people. Of course, this isn't the most comfortable thing to do, and the bus driver wasn't particularly careful with the way that they drove. I can relate the experience to throwing a can of sardines down a mountain. This is when my head began to hurt.
Unfortunately for me, I missed my bus stop and the next bus stop took me really far away. I was close enough where it wouldn't make sense to take another bus, bus still far away to the point that walking would be hell. I decided to walk. Fortunately, I got some good sights of the city. Unfortunately, I drank my last sip of water and my head pain started to intensify any time I tried to take a break, so I just continued to walk home. After about 20 minutes into walking, I was very dehydrated and fed up. We had just spent over 5 hours hiking, and I had do some more walking to get back home.
The way that the neighborhood I was in was very confusing to me, because crosswalks were very far in between. I didn't want to cross the street without a crosswalk, because many cars were passing, but I was starting to walk very far away from my path to get home. I eventually crossed the path but then ended up walking all the way back to where I started, just on the other side of the road. In Portland, there are crosswalks at every block, so it was very easy to find your way, even if you strayed from the path a little bit. In this neighborhood, however, if you miss one turn or cross, it would add another 10 minutes to your travel time!
I eventually made it back home and immediately drank 3 glasses of water. Just like all of my group mates, my skin had gotten sunburns. Fortunately for me, it was only my arms that got sunburns, not my face or neck. Assel gave me some ointment and coconut oil to put on my arms before sleeping, and we ate dinner. Today's dish was stewed chicken and mushrooms over rice and some fish patties.
While eating dinner, Adilbek played his and Assel's wedding video on the new television that they bought the other day. It was interesting to see the traditions of the wedding. It was a very long wedding that consisted of the procession, eating food, dancing, eating even more food, and then having desert and tea. In one part of the video, a man was singing and playing the dombra to kind of introduce Assel to each of Adilbek's relatives. The man would sing a song and Assel would have to bow after the end of it, for every single relative! The ladies accompanying Assel and bowing with her looked tired. Another part consisted of males (Adilbek's friends, Assel's brother, etc) dancing in front of Assel and Adilbek in a way that resembled riding a horse. These men then played musical chairs, but had to do some kind of action before sitting down on the chair, like running up to the newlywed couple and kissing them on the cheek, or getting a lady and sitting her down on the chair. It was quite a show!
Adilbek and Assel then went for a walk. Today was a technology sale day, so they told me they would take a while. I would have gone with them, if not for the fact that my head was really hurting, and I was not looking to walk some more after the travels for today. I just washed up, put on some of the ointment, and went to sleep.
The bus ride took about 40 minutes and on the way, an elderly Russian man was conversing with Janna, Monika, and I. He was speaking in English and we would respond in Russian. Eventually, we got to the final bus stop at Medeu and started to head over to the hiking path as a group. Due to the large size of our group, we split up and went in separate buses. My group was the first to arrive, so we found a spot to wait in for the other group to catch up with us and waited for about 15 minutes.
After the second group arrived, we went on our way throughout the hike. It was a wonderful hike with beautiful scenery. Everywhere you looked was filled with greenery and life! We hiked and hiked on and on until we reached a split in the path where we could choose to either return to the city, which would take 3 hours, or we could go to the waterfall, which would take an additional 2 hours. Of course, I chose to go to the waterfall.
It was a really long hike, but when we made it to the waterfall, it was so refreshing and such a beautiful sight. We spent a great deal of time resting here and took a group photo before returning back home. We met some new animal friends on the way back to the city and had to watch our steps, so as to not step into horse droppings; earlier in the hike, someone slipped on fresh droppings and soiled his shoes and shirt.
On the way back home, we took the bus 29P. The 29th bus takes me back home, so I believed that I was on the right path. At a stop, however, everyone went off the bus and I should have taken that as a red flag. After 10 minutes, the bus continued on, bus a while later, it took some wrong turns. When I looked at 2GIS (navigation app), it turns out that I was going the wrong way, back to Medeu! I got off the next stop and went on the ACTUAL 29th bus. This bus was PACKED and I had to stuff my body into the crowd of people. Of course, this isn't the most comfortable thing to do, and the bus driver wasn't particularly careful with the way that they drove. I can relate the experience to throwing a can of sardines down a mountain. This is when my head began to hurt.
Unfortunately for me, I missed my bus stop and the next bus stop took me really far away. I was close enough where it wouldn't make sense to take another bus, bus still far away to the point that walking would be hell. I decided to walk. Fortunately, I got some good sights of the city. Unfortunately, I drank my last sip of water and my head pain started to intensify any time I tried to take a break, so I just continued to walk home. After about 20 minutes into walking, I was very dehydrated and fed up. We had just spent over 5 hours hiking, and I had do some more walking to get back home.
The way that the neighborhood I was in was very confusing to me, because crosswalks were very far in between. I didn't want to cross the street without a crosswalk, because many cars were passing, but I was starting to walk very far away from my path to get home. I eventually crossed the path but then ended up walking all the way back to where I started, just on the other side of the road. In Portland, there are crosswalks at every block, so it was very easy to find your way, even if you strayed from the path a little bit. In this neighborhood, however, if you miss one turn or cross, it would add another 10 minutes to your travel time!
I eventually made it back home and immediately drank 3 glasses of water. Just like all of my group mates, my skin had gotten sunburns. Fortunately for me, it was only my arms that got sunburns, not my face or neck. Assel gave me some ointment and coconut oil to put on my arms before sleeping, and we ate dinner. Today's dish was stewed chicken and mushrooms over rice and some fish patties.
While eating dinner, Adilbek played his and Assel's wedding video on the new television that they bought the other day. It was interesting to see the traditions of the wedding. It was a very long wedding that consisted of the procession, eating food, dancing, eating even more food, and then having desert and tea. In one part of the video, a man was singing and playing the dombra to kind of introduce Assel to each of Adilbek's relatives. The man would sing a song and Assel would have to bow after the end of it, for every single relative! The ladies accompanying Assel and bowing with her looked tired. Another part consisted of males (Adilbek's friends, Assel's brother, etc) dancing in front of Assel and Adilbek in a way that resembled riding a horse. These men then played musical chairs, but had to do some kind of action before sitting down on the chair, like running up to the newlywed couple and kissing them on the cheek, or getting a lady and sitting her down on the chair. It was quite a show!
Adilbek and Assel then went for a walk. Today was a technology sale day, so they told me they would take a while. I would have gone with them, if not for the fact that my head was really hurting, and I was not looking to walk some more after the travels for today. I just washed up, put on some of the ointment, and went to sleep.
Wow thanks for the videos and photos ! Please hydrate yourself from having heat stroke - it's dangerous!
ReplyDeleteHave a great weekend,
Mom xoxo
Yep! It's especially hot in the mountain, where you are closer to the sun and there are less oxygen molecules.
DeleteYves, sounds like you've had a crazy journey so far. You're going to do fantastic, I know it. :) I'm glad you got to explore the countryside. It looks amazing. Don't forget to sleep enough!
ReplyDeleteYou know what they say: "We will never sleep, 'cause sleep is for the weak". I just wish that it was actually: "sleep is for the week"!
Delete