I arrive at the Ala-Archa gates just as a heavy downpour starts. A privately rented marshrutka stops and picks me up as I'm hiking the 7km to the guesthouse. The Kyrgyz inside invite me to join them for tea. They are prepared for some serious eating having brought with them one sheep, several kilos of pasta and potatoes, a propane tank and a large kazan (think wok but bigger). There's also a case of vodka.
Tea leads to vodka. Vodka leads to lunch, kurdaak, mutton and potatoes. Lunch leads to drunken football in the rain. My surprising sobriety, given that everyone took a Kyrgyz shot (50-100mL) with me leads to three blistering goals and I contemplate playing as star striker for the Kyrgyz national team. Given their record, it can't hurt.
Football leads to more vodka, which leads to dinner, beshbarmak (five fingers in Kyrgyz), an entre of the broth in which the sheep is stewed and a main course of pasta and sheep, eaten with, you guessed it, your five fingers. Yum!
The mountains from a path barely fifty metres away from the road, when you hang out with Kyrgyz, hiking is out of the option. Only drinking, eating and football are allowed.
Left to right, driver (only sobre one), Chenghis, myself, Tilik, Salaam and Aibek who organised and paid for the day. In front with football, cool guy who's name I forget. Absent from photo, wives/girlfriends and children who I never spoke with as it seemed inappropriate and the biggest drunk of all who spent the whole day talking shit to me about climbing in the mountains and how he'd bury me there or something to that effect, his masterful use of Russian swear words had me confused half the time as to whether he's complaining or stirring. He didn't cop a beating because his friends were so nice and the food was so good.
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