Asia

[Visited: October 2023]

We were both tired when we started driving east from Almaty airport after a delayed arrival. Clouds are sailing low through the sky when I steer our car on the highway with little traffic. I have been quite often to Almaty, have explored some of the area around here, but never the destination we are driving to now: Charyn Canyon. But I am worried about the weather. When we turn off the main road, it starts to rain, and visibility drops considerably. We still haven't arrived, and I just keep on hoping that the weather will clear. We drive through a small canyon, and see the Tian Shan mountains rising in the background when the rain stops and we can see some more. By the time we arrive at the final turn for Charyn Canyon, the clouds above us get thinner and a hesitant sun shows itself. We pay a small entrance fee, have some tasty food in a restaurant, and then set off to explore the canyon.
The clouds clear when we walk down the stairs and see the first rock formations for which Charyn Canyon is famous. We now realize that we are lucky after all: we have arrived in the early afternoon, the light is getting always better, and the views are fantastic. We follow the dirt track that runs down the canyon. The further we go down, the higher the walls on both sides of the canyon become. We see towers of rock, we see some steep slopes where we see footsteps, and we decide to hike up one of them on our way back. Then, we come to a half fallen huge slice of rock, and we climb up to above it. There, we get a good view of the valley below us, and the dirt track that runs through it. Not long after that, we come across a rock formation through which the road leads. One of the two vans driving up and down the valley barely manages to squeeze itself through it.
When we reach the end of the road, we come to Charyn river. This runs from the Tian Shan mountains in the south into the desert plain east of Almaty. The other side of the river is a steep rock wall, and when we turn around, we see trees in autumn colours and some of the spectacular rocks rising steeply up from the valley floor. We take one of the vans to drive up Charyn Canyon, and get off at one of the trails leading up the north side of the valley. Then, I follow the trail running along the steep wall, all the way to the end. I am rewarded with great views of the spectacular crack in the earth. The sun sets some of the rock towers in the spotlights, while the clouds makes them stand out even more by casting shade over the background. I watch this play of hide and seek for a while, soak up the views with the snowy mountains in the background, until it is time to go. We still have some driving to do.

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Charyn Canyon (Kazakhstan)

Charyn Canyon > Kazakhstan > Asia

[Visited: October 2023]

Around the World in 80 Clicks