Wood lake – NP Altyn-Emel
in 6 days
Day 0
The Arrival of all participants. We arrange meeting in the airport of Almaty city, and transfer you to a hotel. After that we all can have a dinner, get acquainted with each other and discuss every possible question considering the tour.
Day 1
We get up early, have breakfast and depart to “Derevyannoe”(wooden) lake. It will take us about 3,5-4 hours to get there. We arrive at the lake after a lunch time. While we arrange the camp and prepare a late lunch, you can wander around the camp, familiarising yourself with surrounding territory or simply have a rest. The sun is still high above horizon and it’s not the right time to take photos, therefore the company is engaged in preparation of sleep places. At last the camp is set up and the dinner is ready. We eat, share our plans and prepare photo equipment. The sun starts to approach the horizon and photographers disperse on dunes to catch light and shades. We are shooting until it is totally dark. On our return to camp, we are awaited by a fire, a hot dinner, tea, wine and the guitar chords.
Day 2
Sun rises early forcing us to get up earlier because we need to be catch it on tops of dunes. Also we’re trying to take pictures of dry trees in the dunes (let people to whom you’d show your photos think that you have visited Namibia). After that there is a possibility to take pictures of a model against the sand. The sun already high enough and the air becomes hot, we come back to camp, the breakfast is almost ready, but at first you can plunge into the lake, taking a dive into it directly from a dune. This is fantastic place where sand and water meet each other in steppe breaking off all sides of a natural order. After swimming appetite develops into hunger, so we urgently having the breakfast. After the brealfast we prepare to moving on to the Charynsky Canyon. After all preparations are finished we leaveI takes two hours of driving to get to Charynsky Canyon, but they pass imperceptibly because of constantly changing landscapes. After we arrive, all participants are free to wander around in any possible direction, because the Canyon is so beautiful in all directions and it is difficult to choose what way to go. Skilled guides will give an advice on the most interestin routes. At this time we set up a camp and prepare a lunch. We have a lunch practically without having a seat, as it it’s hard to resist the temptation to return to the Canyon and to photo all this beauty. Before a sunset we leave a canyon for the best points for shooting (let people to whom you’d show your photos think that you have visited the Grand Canyon in USA). We catch light, and shooting the sunset. On return we are awaited by dinner, fire, tea, wine and guitar chords.
Day 3
Early, early in the morning, when the sun has not risen yet, but is already light, we leave to our positions, this is the time when the play of light and shades can give you an opportunity of taking really tremendous shot. The sun only beginning to show itself from beside of the mountains, but canyon bastions are already amazing the imagination with their shades. Each minute changes the composition, so everyone continue catching light and shades. After no more than one and a half hours the sun has already risen high, the passion has ceased, but hunger is already here, we come back to camp, to have breakfast, then we pack our things and leave. Packing and preparing will take at least two hours, so after spending an hour on the road we stop in roadside cafe to have a lunch. It is our tradition to stop in the Kokpek settlement and have a good bite. For people visiting Central Asia for the first time it will be interesting to try ethnic cuisine. After such a lunch one doesn’t want to go anywhere, but the road calls, and we continue our way. Having passed 150 more kilometres of asphalt and settlements, at last we reach the city. The hotel greets come back travellers with a dinner and a bed.
Day 4
Early in the morning while the air is cool, we leave a city, fuel is filled, water-supplies lap in canisters, and the provisions are laid in boxes. We have left to Altyn Emel National Park, a place which is really unique. The road is more than 300 kilometres long. After a several hours of journey we arrive at the administration office of the national park, we pass the control, and we’re now accompanied by with the guide. The first evening we spend at the Singing Dune. If there would be no bushes of a saxaul sticking out everywhere and no river flowing nearby landscape could remind of Namibia, namely Desert Namib. While we set up the camp, participants try to climb up to the top of the dune, height of which reaches 130 metres. Day passes away, the sun already starts to create sharp shades on the dune slopes, now it’s the right time for the photographer. The higher you get, the more interesting landscape you can see. On the top the you can take a picture of the picturesque perspective of mountain ridges as a background and the river Ili which sleeves reflect the sun and blind a look. We are shooting to dusk. We come back to camp where we are as usually awaited by dinner, fire, tea, wine, guitar and certainly a good company already whose members are already became friends after days of touring conditions.
Day 5
Dawn. You haven’t shot any masterpieces yet? You still have all the chances. The morning dune stuns you with colder paints, but all the same sharp shades. The tremendous show – sand dunes and snow-covered mountains as a background, all is highlighted. Photosession lasts about one and a half hour, as even more fascinating adventure lies ahead. We go down from the dune, have breakfast, pack and leave to Ak Tau (White mountains). The road 90 kilometres long lies through forest-steppe of a saxaul, and occasionally we can see relic tree of Turanga; now the real safari begins. On the way it is possible to meet many animals (kulans, saygaks, jeyrans, black vultures, wolves, wild boars and so on.). Some of these animals are under protection around the world. Though the road has no cover, but the speed is not less than 60 kilometres per hour, occasionally we try to get closer to herds kulans or jeyrans which are usually seen in this area of park. Soon silhouettes of white mountains can be viewed. Behind white mountains red ones show up, behind them there come striped and relief, we are suddenly made our way to Mars, and passed the Earth behind! When we apporach the mountains, we stop near a bungalow. It would be desirable to eat, and it is also necessary to take care of lodging for the night preparation as we will return to camp by the night. Having had dinner and having unpacked sleeping bags, we leave on a tour around White and Red mountains. The beauty of a relief and its colouring bewitch, you can’t even imagine that such views can exist even on Mars, but we continue the tour, because we have only barely enough amount of time, and we want to see as much as possible. While the sun is high enough, we enjoy sights of vicinities, we discover that every small gorge has a little surprise for us. So sun goes down, and we still need some time to choose the best point for sunset shooting, so the group disperses around. The sun leaves the horizon, last clicks of shutters can be heard, it is time to come back to camp. After spending so much time in mountains it seems that you can probably eat the whole bull, but it is not necessary to take a great effort, overeating before the night is harmful. The fire and hot tea are the best conditions for a friendly chat. The whole lot of the emotions, everyone wishes to transfer the sensations from the endured day. It’s so pleasent just to sit around the fire, but we have to save our strength, as tomorrow more many new adventures await, therefore the camp quickly falls asleep.
Day 6
As always it is impossible to pass the morning away, so we leave to meet a dawn. Who ate much in the evening, has more problems with gettin up. Red mountains at a dawn simply burn with flame, and their shades remind of the fire tongues trying to absorb everything in their way. The program is free for today so the one can climb on small red hills, climb to the very top of white mountains to take a picture from there, or travel away in steppe far away from mountains to make a panorama, having grasped all multi-coloured mountains in one shot. After a dawn we come back to have breakfast, there are two more places that we want to show you. While the camp is packing, we leave to the next gorge. Water and a wind created really tremendous landscapes. The walk into the gorge takes about an hour, this place reminds of Petra in Jordan and of the Canyon of the Antelope in US at once. After having equipment packed into cars we start to move in the opposite direction. On the way we visit another gorge, here we are awaited by freakish forms of a relief, they are small, but their forms unearthly. Once there was a sea and magma eruption on a surface, after that many years of aeration have passed and before us lies the result of the long-term work of the creator. We spend about half of an hour on a photoshooting then we are awaited by a way home.
It is already dark, and we have returned to a city, and the hotel welcomes wanderers with the dinner. The photosafari is finished, we wish you good luck on your way back to your homeland.