The third day of our horse trek was to be just a free morning around Tash Rabat. By now I had become so used to the horse that it no longer hurt. Having mastered the art of horse riding, very badly, I was confident enough to set off on my own into the hills and just enjoy the last few hours of freedom in the mountains before returning to civilization. Heinz decided that two days without a wash was enough and off he went for a wash in the icy cold river. Tom and I knew we were probably incredibly smelly by now, but didn’t fancy more pain. A shower could wait till the evening when we’d be in Naryn, all being well.

I took my horse off to tackle one of the smaller passes just nearby and we wandered through flocks of grazing cattle and sheep. For one last time I took in the splendid views and then headed back down to the valley where I could see something was happening, but couldn’t make out exactly what it was.

As I came down closer I could suddenly see that it was a newly arrived family putting up their yurt. I rode closer and the whole ordeal became fascinating. It takes about 3 hours to put one up and I had (albeit from a distance mostly) seen most of it happen. I continued to watch from the saddle as they put the traditional felt covering over the wooden frame that had been constructed around the family belongings. 8 members of the family worked together to build it and everyone had a defined role. The men did the heavy lifting and shouting, the women swept the felt clean, looked after the children and occasionally served everyone with the communal cup of Kymys. They noticed me sitting there enthralled and I too was offered more Kymys. As different people took their break, they came over and chatted and explained the construction process.

By lunchtime though I had to leave and head back to Tash Rabat. We had a quick lunch and one last wander around the encampment before saying goodbye and heading to Naryn. It had been a wonderful few days and I was loathed to leave but we did. One thing I had been looking forward to was a nice, cleansing hot shower in Naryn. We got there only to find that the water had been cut off all day. By now we didn’t care, we smelled as bad as eachother, it would have to wait!

Some of the family constructing their yurt with plastic and then felt covering a wooden frame.