Tuesday afternoon a week ago we went for a excursion on the right side of the Irtysh river. This was organised thanks to Alina which I met during the weekend. Anya, a friend of Alina, took Lena and me up at 13 o’clock. After getting through the traffic out of the city we first visited the Akbaur petroglyphs. Anya told us, that these petroglyphs can be found at many rocks throughout the whole area. There was also a research a couple of years ago from a Russian scientist. On the other side of the valley she showed us another straight rock, which is not well known and visited by tourist. We skipped the hike to the nearby Sorokina mountain in favor of some other sites we would like to visit during the afternoon. During the drive through the valley the route was changed by Anya spontaneously and we just visited a nearby waterfall. As we were now in the countryside there were lots of horses. We stopped at a local horse milk producer. I had to taste this local speciality of fermented horse milk. The first sip tastes a little bit strange but then I got used to it, and eventually each of us took an own bottle with home. If this horse milk is not cooled the level of alcohol rises constantly and it can become very strong. We headed on to a small creek and prepared our evening picknick in the shadow of the trees before we continued our excursion to the Sibinskie lakes. These five lakes are beside to each other and just separated each by a rock ridge in between. There is a myth that once Buddha was sitting on the opposite mountain and just scratched with his hand these five lakes in the rocks. So each lake is made by one of his fingers. But before we visited the lakes we just went to a small pond, through bushes and crossing a creek. Here at this pond we left our wishes…hopefully they come true in the future.
Once we arrived at the middle lake we took an easy climb up the mountain ridge, but as time already passed away we were not able to go on for a longer walk to the nearest mountain. It is also not completely safe as there are living bears in these tree covered mountains. We went just downhill and put our feet into the fresh water. As I was speaking English with Lena a friendly local just came to me and started a short conversation. He was surprised to meet a foreigner their and told me, that he came from Almaty and was studying in Oskemen, but was also the first time here at these beautiful lakes. As the sunset was approaching fast we just went back to the city. Thanks to Alina, Anya and Lena it was a very pleasurable afternoon and evening for me.





















