Mentally, not physically. I had this photo seating on my drive for some time, just never felt like posting it. We were on a little hike around Chimbulak Ski Resort near Almaty Kazakhstan. This is almost as high you can get without special climbing gear. Alpine flowers are really cool, they are small but they are bright and they know how to survive in not the most friendly environments.
If you can see, on the left side of the photo, right in the middle, there is a black whole in the rock. It is actually a cave. About 3-4 meters high. I don’t know how deep it is, I didn’t hike over there.
Central Asia has some beautiful scenery. Before I started my job of putting itineraries together for people across the region I could hardly pronounce Tajikistan or Kyrgyzstan, and I found myself every day longing more and more to explore the Pamirs, Fann Mountains and all the exotic ancient wonders that seem almost hidden from the rest of the world.
Thanks for sharing the beauty 🙂
Hi, thanks for stopping by, Central Asian countries are pretty cool, not super easy to travel there, but it is so different than anything else out there.
Tell me about it! Even some of the local guides used to terrify me with scary border crossing stories and I always thought it would be easier for them than a tourist!
Still though, worth the adventure
Many of these alpine flowers seen here formed the basis of the cultivated perennials now grown in Europe and North America. Here is a partial quote taken from the blog ‘life between the flowers’: “. . . In 1842 the Treaty of Nanking was signed to bring an end to the first opium war between Britain and the Qing Dynasty, which then opened up China to British plant collectors and travellers and it is then that [many species] found there were introduced here. Possibly by Robert Fortune a famous plant hunter who was sent to China around that time by the Royal Horticultural Society. Read more: http://lifebetweentheflowers.blogspot.com/#ixzz1lnkBz5hq ”
This photo shows the original varieties of many of the plants commonly found in English, European, and American/Canadian gardens today. It is fascinating to see! Thank you.
If you have a chance, read a book called “Apples are from Kazakhstan”. Most apples in the world came from that region too.
I was born in Almaty and the thing I miss the most are the mountains in the summertime… Thank you.