A River or Lake

I’d like to talk about Lake Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan, which I visited with a group of friends about two summers ago. It’s a huge mountain lake — one of the largest in the world — surrounded by snow-capped peaks, and remarkably, it never freezes in winter, which is how it got its name, meaning “warm lake”. We drove there from Bishkek, which took about four hours, and stayed in a small guesthouse on the northern shore for five days. During the day, we swam, though the water was surprisingly cold, and lay on the beach reading. One day we hired horses and rode up into the hills, from where you could see the entire lake shimmering below. In the evenings, we built a fire on the beach and watched the sun set behind the mountains, which turned the water pink and gold. I felt an incredible sense of peace there. The lake is so vast and clear that it almost looks like the sea, and the silence, apart from the waves, was something I’d never experienced in a city. It was also humbling, in a way; standing on the shore, surrounded by mountains, I felt very small, and all my everyday worries seemed unimportant.

Geografik fakt + faoliyat + sezgilar (ranglar, sukunat) + falsafiy his.