Searching for a field of rocks in Kyrgyzstan

A field of petroglyphs

With its great position on the north shore of Lake Issyk-Kul, Cholpon-Ata is a well-known holiday destination for Central Asian families. To cater for the glut of summer visitors, almost every shop sells an array of beach toys and swimming gear.

But because Australia is blessed with some of the world’s finest beaches, we’re rarely in search of a swimming hole. So instead five of us set out to find Cholpon-Ata’s other famous attraction—the ancient petroglyphs (rock engravings).

A poster to use as a clue

Famous? Well that was the rub.

We asked and asked and asked for directions. I even had a photo of the poster advertising the petroglyphs with the word written underneath in Russian (or Kyrgyz)!

Hmm, nope, never heard of them—or words to that effect—was the most common response, accompanied by a shrug of the shoulders or a certain amount of head scratching. At first I wondered if we were asking only tourists who simply didn’t know, but I reckon the people running shops must be locals.

A fellow running a tour company pulled out a map and showed us the way, which included a walk up a ‘road’ that seemed to start and end in the middle of nowhere. That, of course, was because the road is really a disused airport runway.

Goat?

We optimistically trudged in the general direction of the runway and kept asking where to turn to get to the petroglyphs. Either nobody knew or they gave distances that ranged from half a kilometre to three or four. We’d already walked three or four!

There was one exception. A little girl at a crowded bus stop had a general idea of where they were. No doubt she had visited on a school excursion. But she had no English, nor did any of the others. So her spiel and hand waving weren’t of much use.

At last we turned up a likely road (just past a petrol station someone had mentioned) and a fellow directed us to the actual road/runway in the middle of a field of dirt.

The largest petroglyph. The photo doesn’t it show it very clearly, but the two animals in the top right are supposedly snow leopards trained to hunt!

So much for feeling like you’re getting close. Do you know how long a runway is?

When we finally arrived at the gate we were surprised to find most of the rest of our group already there—or already come and gone! Obviously they had asked the right questions in their quest for the location. Now that I think of it, I suspect they also had the group’s Russian speaker with them.

One of our fellow travellers warned us that admission was high—somewhere between 250 and 350 som (or $5 to $7)—but that was a miscommunication. We got in for $1 each.

Reindeer

Mountain goat?

We spent about an hour wandering among the rocks with their age-old artworks. The guidebook says this open-air ‘museum’ has about 2000 images dating from 800BC to 1200AD. Many of the animals depicted are now extinct or extremely rare in the area. We found 10 or 12 rocks with etchings, some with multiple pictures.

Supposedly there is a track leading through the rocks, but we had as much luck following it as we did finding the actual site.

P.S. I got a kick out of the fact that most of the site is fenced. Do they think the rocks are going to escape?

Stampeding rocks?