Kazakhstan 2015 [1]
- Details
Soooo...! With a decent latency now some pics from Kazakhstan! :-)
Unfortunately the lack of time required cutting down (or better, not writing much) text, so it's more some random thoughts to the pictures with a minimum of information and a maximum of grammar and spelling mistakes. And by accident I deleted one posting, which pisses me off quite much atm.
Well well, enough of that justifying, lets now get to the nice stuff! :-) To sum it up, an amazing and interesting trip in every way, people (!), impressions, animals, weather...
So what was it all about? The excursion has been organised by a Kyrgyz geograph and a German zoologist and it's main goal was to see and get impressions of the countries and learn more about geography, geology, nature as well as the people's way of life. So as you can see, for the first time since ages, herpetology wasn't the main goal of the trip (well, let's say not the sole one ;-) ).
Of course I haven't been the only one interested in that kind of travelling, all together we were 35 participants and except for ~5 persons (me being one of those...) all students from mainly Germany, but also Austria, Switzerland and Italy. The main professions have been geography, biology, botanics but also (and now for something) completely different, like medicine or journalism! I think the highlight has been a student of nautics (...in one of the most continental countries on earth ^^).
So much for the what (what) and who. How usually looked like following three pictures, travelling in (offroad-)busses, excursions and mainly camping [except for the first picture in this posting {Kyrgyzstan}, all were clicked in Kazakhstan]:
The nice thing about those three things has been their diversity:
Uh, yes, we had cold weather too.. like the really cold way of cold weather :-) I actually could observe subsuns on ground level the first time in my life..
Well, just cause it has minus 10 degrees, it doesn't mean that lectures are off! As proven below, unicorns are obviously not adapted to that temperatures ^^
Also the two aspects of consuming vodka during cold weather, a) it warms you up b) you easier freeze to death, got a little more clear to me :-)
..I was so indescribably happy having invested some money in a down jacket and sleeping bag, besides some merino shirts and socks (uh, yes, we had a real shower on the 21st day :-) )...
...could have been taken out of an lone-warrior-end-time-movie...
Enough of that coldishness! On we go with the Singing Dunes in the Altyn-Emel national park, the tallest dunes in Kazakhstan!
Uh, we've also been on Mars!
From there (Aktau [white mountain] with those amazing colors, also Altyn Emel national park) back to earth, cause after frost and stones only, some weeds were highly welcome [pictures: if i remember right, Ili river Canyon close to Kapchagai on top, below a riparian forest, i think also Ili, but far closer to China].
...end of Part 1, more will follow, or actually should have already followed, if I wouldn't have deleted it. And AHRG -- the grammar of if-sentences... again! :-)
Kazakhstan 2015 [2]
- Details
Well... resurrecting what's left -- the second attempt of that post :-)
Where did I start.. ah yes, with animals, plants and that stuff! One of the main attractions of the trip has been the wild tulips! I'm still sorry for the botanics group, that there was always some pressure on them regarding time. Cause there's always too little time and too much interesting plants... here.. and over there... and on the top of that hill, and while standing on top, well you can imagine, also behind that hill, and there - a flower again! And so on.
It's only fair to say, if you replace "plant" with "lizard" and "flower" with "snake", it's the same for fieldherpetology. And if you replace snake with bird and lizard with bird you get the idea of a birding-trip. ..and there are stories, just tales, that people got totally lost, cause they were so much engrossed into the plants.. and bugs.. and lizards... ;-)
So, with the warmer weather, the flowers started blooming again, and looots of tulips amongst them! The upper ones were clicked in Kazakhstan, the lower in Kyrgyzstan.
Of course, not only plantey-stuff was coming out to get some sun, also my beloved critters (well, likely another case of very one-sided-affection..)!
The animal's adaption to the continental climate is just amazing. Below minus five degrees in the morning -- what do you hear? Frogs (Rana ridibundus)! Ok, they did a little cheating, cause they were sitting in a pond "powered by" a thermal spring. So that's cool, but you can also observe this in Austria close to Villach.
So, apart from that cheating frogs, again, below minus 5 during night, close to 6°C plus at around 10 o'clock morning, and the first Phrynocephalus agamas are sitting outside! You could pick them up with two fingers, cause there were, well, a little cold, but still, they were basking outside! And not only one, but several. Of those (P. helioscopus) for now no pictures, but here also something very common, the steppe agama (Trapelus sanguinolentus/agilis) and the single Eremias grammica (Reticulate Racerunner; cool name for that guy i would say) observed. Other specimen of Eremias species were more common.
Aaand, always veeery cool, a camel spider!
Some short words, or better a small pic, concerning crucial equipment: Selfmade lightweight snakehook (a.k.a. coat hanger; never used but aaalways at hand, even in the night.. and while munching through snow... and on the toilet...), camera (obviously in use every now and then), vodka (that one was two for the price of one; also in use every now and then...), and the holy Svensson. That picture also represents the standard sitting position and gives a little clue about the space available in the "zoology-bus".
Another major highlight in Kazakhstan has been a riding-game (i think it's called Kokbar), where two teams of riders play for the control of a goat carcass... without helmet... and (the rest of) a goat with around 30+ kilogram.. often one-handed, or, if twohanded, with the rein between the teeth... riding full speed like hell.
We were something like the surprise-fanclub for both of the teams :-)
Below, that's one of the main tourist location for locals as well as foreigners -- the Scharyn-Canyon. And it has lots of those bloody huge Great Gerbils (Rhombomys opimus; opimus means ~wonderful). Unfortunately this one was hiding it's main attraction, the tail.
The one and only bus, the two core-members of the birding group (a bit disoriented due to the lack of bird), left below a graveyard with influences of different cultures (mainly islamic and russian-orthodox if i remember right), and the leading lady/professor of the botanics group, likely soon to be recaptured by leading guy of zoology due to average distance > 7 hills to the rest of the group members ;-)
...and at last, those two signs, mounted as they were in an, at the moment, empty hostel for children, i don't know why, they really gave me weird feelings in the stomach.
...driver remember, they are waiting for you at home!
Kyrgyzstan 2015 [3]
- Details
- Саламатсызбы!
- Саламатчылык!
- Кандайсыз?
- Жакшы!
... so much for my Kyrgyz (Hello! Re: Hello! How are you? Fine!). Kyrgyz and Kazakh are i think insofar interesting languages, as they are Turk languages, but written in cyrillic letters. Well, at least, for Kyrgyz (likely similar for Kazakh), since the influence of the USSR; before that (and maybe in future?) it has been written in the latin based "uniform turkic alphabet"... and before that in Arabic letters .. and before that in Turkish runes..
enough of the blabla, now here the last part, some pictures from kyrgyzstan! (I like the english "Kyrgyzstan" more than "Kirgistan", that "Kyrgyz" looks far more stylish :-) )
Starting with Bishkek, the capital city, the pictures have been taken all only several hundred meters apart.
..still in the same area.. below: habitat of Vipera renardi and the official town's landmark, I would say. An absolutely huge factory, which overshoots everthing and sets the whole city below a smog dome.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA[... here imagine 6 lines of cursing because i overwrote a prior topic ...]
As visible above, the weather got better and better the last week of the trip, which we spent more or less in the surroundings of Bishkek. Warmer temperatures means more interesting stuff outside. The herpetological highlight definitely has been a specimen of the Steppe Viper, Vipera renardi (right picture). On the left picture a Dione's Rat Snake (Elaphe dione), below another Racerunner species, Eremias arguta.
Unfortunately i didn't find what I was veery much looking foward to, namely a Halys-Viper, which belongs to the group of pitvipers. And seeing that would have been really something new to me.
When you are in Kyrgyzstan, there's no way that you leave without having been in the mountains. In our case it has been an excursion up to about 3500 m.a.s.l., which was a bit below the glaciers there.
The last part in Kyrgyzstan (besides an amazing good-bye-party and a taxi trip back to Kazakhstan) was a walking trip through Bishkek. Quite a contrast program from the beautiful mountain scenery, into the heart of the city. Below right is the main marked from Bishkek, photographed from above. From there you would have absolutely noooo idea what's going on below. Its a huge souq, like a small city, below those currogated metal sheets.
...and at the very end, on day 21, I think i saw heaven:
..of course every now an then you find some funny oddities... like the stones above or the suff pictured below. A tornado- and stealing-proof stool, good ol' Seppi on the road and cool architecture.
To sum everyhing up: Just amazing.
And thanks for that veeeery nice evening! :-)
Page 9 of 21