outdoor adventure club trip to the dacha

on saturday, we took the bishkek international school outdoor adventure club on an overnight trip to the apline fund dacha. we left saturday morning and returned sunday around noon.

one of the amazing things about bishkek is our (really) close proximity to the mountains. it is an easy 45 minute drive from our apartment (and the school) to ala-archa national park which boast peaks over 4000 meters high (12,000 feet plus), some incredible glaciers, and all around loveliness. along the way we pace through some small villages (always with kids riding donkeys and sheep crossing the roads) and really big, interesting muslim cemetery.

after we arrived, we set up the cabin, made some lunch, and then immediately hiked up a nearby slope for some sledding. the kids were so much fun and really enjoyed themselves. we had one girl, laura, who is from australia, who had never been in snow. she ended up spending most of the day laying on her stomach slowly sliding down the hill while licking and eating snow directly from the ground into her mouth (look ma... no hands!). it was both kind of gross and amazingly funny at the same time.

we returned to the cabin to some amazing, twice burnt, chicken noodle soup. the night ended with with us making smoores outside around the fire.

yes... in the photos that is marshmallow on my face and snot running down my nose.

jen is so proud.

trip to poland

i went to poland for five days to attend an advanced placement (a fancy way of saying "honors") calculus conference. my wonderful director at bishkek international school, marykay, sent me on the trip.

funny thing though... i am horrible at math. true... i teach secondary math at bis... but i struggle my way through it and am nominally one step ahead of the kids. calculus... way out of my league.

and it was obvious at the conference (which was two eight hour days of sitting around and working calculus problems) that i was so out of my league!

so in that regard... the conference was not a good time.

but from the stand point of getting to travel. i LOVED poland! warsaw and krakow were the quintessential european cities with the old town squares and amazing architecture. because of my travel arrangements (i had a layover in istanbul!)... i was afforded a couple of days walking around and explore warsaw. pretty incredible.

the highlight of the trip though was the food. no... not the traditional polish fare... but american food! they have "american fast food" in poland (and the istanbul airport) and i went to burger king twice... mcdonalds once... and to kfc once. jen was so jealous... lol.

halloween at the metro

we made it back from our fall trip in time to go to the metro pub halloween party with our friend annie from work.

the metro pub is the local "american" bar and home to some decent mexican food and a really good bacon (real bacon even!) cheese burger. the menu is in english and the wait staff all speak in english. so you can imagine that jen and i have been there more than once.

anyway... the halloween party at the metro is suppose to be legendary and one of the best parties in town.

jen and i spent the day saturday at the medina bazaar (the huge cloth and carpet market in bishkek) looking for material with which to make costumes. after finding a leopard print material... we decided to go as cavemen. my super crafty amish wife made us great costumes!

the party was well worth coming home early and featured a aerosmith cover band.

fall break trip to karakol

the end of october brought us a week long break from school and we decided to take advantage of the time off to travel to lake issyk-kul and karakol. so we loaded up the car and headed off for the five hour drive east to issyk-kul.

the lake is one of the largest alpine lakes in the world and is pretty impressive. surrounded by 4,000 meter peaks (over 12,000 feet) on all sides. our original plan was to camp somewhere on the lake for a night before heading to karakol... but after stopping for lunch along the lake (and realizing how cold it was getting outside)... we drove on to karakol for the night. we hoped to stay at a recommended bed and breakfast listed in our lonely planet guide but after not finding it and driving around for over an hour (remember... kyrgyz cities don't have street lights or street signs... so it is very easy to get lost at night)... we ended up at a really fun hostel called "yak tours". cute and nice rooms.

we were unsure of our plans the next day. in the morning we meet a really nice couple from brussels who were traveling around central asia and after talking to them for a while we decided to join them on a trip to a cabin that the hostel had up in the mountains.

the trip to the cabin was a three hour ordeal over the craziest boulder strewn mountain road that we had ever been on. several times during the ride jen and i were convinced that the jeep we were in was going to fall off the side of the mountain and thousands of feet below into the canyon. it was honestly scare and a couple of times tried to get the russian driver to stop so we could get out and walk but he ignored us and kept driving. finally, we got to a section in the road that was too steep and had too much snow for the loaded jeep to make it up with us in it. so the drivers (there were a couple of jeeps taking us, our new friends ramone and lyndia, and some other folks) stopped and told us to walk rest of the way... they would meet us at the cabin.

seemed like an nice idea... but in typical david conover fashion... i was only wearing flip flops (with socks of course)... and the "short 200 meter walk" was up and over a mountain pass through snow and ice and back down into karakol valley.

other than the frostbite i suffered on my pinkie toe... the walk was well worth the effort as the valley was the most amazing, majestic alpine valley that jen and i had ever seen.

the cabin we stayed was rustic and cold... but we were so excited upon learning that their were some hot springs nearby that it didn't matter. we got settled into the cabin and walked down to the "natural springs" (a sanitarium... but with really nice tubs). it felt amazing to soak and get feeling back in my toes!

that night we sat around the fire in the dinning room talking and chatting. around 900pm we were served a dinner of sheep liver and sheep tail fat. let me repeat that... sheep liver and sheep tail fat.

after a COLD night of sleep (we were so thankful that we had our sleeping bags as it was freezing and we were at over 9000 feet)... we got in another soak before heading back down off the mountain.

once we arrived back in karakol... we decided to head home in order to make it to the halloween party at the metro pub.

below are the photos...