Larry Memmott's Blog

We got our jeep and immediately had to get out of town and see a bit more of the country. The first weekend we were going to drive up to Ala Archa, a mountainous national park just 25 miles south of the city. However, as we were leaving town we were passed by a motorcycle. The rider was someone Tatyana and I had met just two nights before at the Korean National Day reception. He is American and working for one of the international organizations here in town. He had been telling us about his adventures exploring the country by motorcycle, and particularly about a road close by Bishkek.

Well, as it turns out, he was headed for that road, and he offered to show us the way. So we left the trip to Ala Archa for another day and followed him up the road. We found a beautiful area on the side of the mountain and went for a walk (our guide had continued on ahead of us). If you want to see where we were on the map, you can look here (you can zoom in close enough to see the individual trees).

Natasha, Sevara and Tatyana

The area was forested with weathered old junipers

There was a family there picking barberries. They are a sour berry used to flavor plov (and other things). We picked a few ourselves, but the bushes are filled with thorns, so you really need gloves to pick the berries.

Aliciya and her cousin, Sevara, had a little picnic

Looking cool

A few days later we went up to the Manas Transit Center for “Family Day.” We were up there for work (to accompany visiting Kyrgyz officials) but had a great time. Colonel Holt, the Transit Center Director, took us out to visit one of the Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers that fly out of the center to provide aerial refueling for coalition aircraft over Afghanistan.

At the airfield

Just one more cute photo of Aliciya and Sevara