i spent 7 days trekking across KYRGYZSTAN 🇰🇬 horseback, yurts, & hiking!

Auto-captioned from the film, lightly cleaned. Elena's words, not edited prose.

Hello. Good morning. Coming to you from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. And we're about to leave on a 5-day track throughout the wilderness of Kyrgyzstan. If you're just tuning in, we've just spent 5 days instan. Today we're setting off on a track throughout essentially the mountains of Kyrgyzstan or the steps of Kyrgyzstan. I think it's just step. If you've seen my content, you know I love to hike. I did Mount Kilamanjaro last year and I wanted to explore a new region of the world and this is Sage's first track. We have a tour guide for this.

It's very difficult to play on your own. So, we're heading off with the team. What's unique about this one is that for half of it, we're going to be on horseback. Neither of us have ridden a horse probably in 15 years. Yeah, maybe 20. So, let's go. Road trip, baby. Woo! Hello. in a pretty usual Alana fashion from a yurt somewhere in the middle of Kyrgyzstan. My sister and I have been traveling along the Silk Road for about a week now. And we have come all the way to Kyrgyzstan to trek through the wilderness here.

I don't know what I'm doing. I don't really know how I got here, but I'm so excited. Ever since hiking Mount Kilara last year, I've become really obsessed with doing these like adventurous outdoorsy tracks that are kind of like outside my general comfort zone. Like I'm a city girl who loves the outdoors and loves exploring new places. So we're about to spend the next 5 days hiking and horseback riding through the great plains and mountains of Kyrgyzstan. Come along. Okay, but before we go, I have to talk to you about one of my favorite travel hacks of all time.

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So definitely if you are a traveler going on any exciting trips, check out Arerillo. Just took an off-roading car all the way down like 30 minutes from where we had lunch. This is our wonderful guide. We're on top on some horses, right? Woohoo. Yeah. Hello, New York. Hello. It's for us. What is it called? It's a fruit from the mountain. Oh, for me. Thank you. Oh, it's good. It's like sweet and tangy at the same time. Heat. Heat. Give me a wave. Y room tour. Hey girl. She's reading her Kindle.

Kindle. There are five beds here. I think it's just the two of us. This is my first Y experience ever. It's actually quite cozy, but I'm a little nervous we're going to be very cold tonight. Thankfully, there is a furnace. It's beautiful. Actually, the detail is really impressive. It is like Hello from our year along Su Lake in this beautiful beautiful like vast expanse of like fields and sloping hills and you see these snowy mountains off in the distance. We had a lovely first day. I did not factor in how hard it would be to film on a horse.

It was funny how Sage and I both had to get like our sea legs, like our horse legs. Like we were uncomfortable at first and it's first for me. I've never really done a track that involves horseback riding. But thank goodness for it because we went up a lot in terms of elevation gain. I can feel it even in my lungs a little bit. Thank God for those horses because these legs could not have carried me. So now we have a nice little chill evening to enjoy the beautiful views and have dinner.

There are a few other travelers. We're definitely the only Americans. One of the only Americans we've met between here and Beckistan. I'm really grateful to be here. It's so peaceful. It's so beautiful. And just like a perfect first day here. Time for our nighttime routine. Got all the goodies. K's bathroom check. Forgot a towel. A tank top will do. Despite being a girl on the road, I'm still a little bougie. Did I bring the Tata Harper water cream to the hills of Kyrgyzstan? Hell yes, I did. No, the skincare days.

Oh, it's not sponsored. I just adore this Tata Harper. You see this? I love you. Hi, cow. Good morning. I didn't sleep very well. Um, but what do you expect when you're on a slab of wood in the cold? We had these grand plans to get up for the sunrise and it just it didn't happen. I'm not a sunrise girly. Let's be real. I'm a sunset girl. Sunrise girly. Never been her. No, never will be her. Let's be honest. Yeah. Day two on the trail. I'm still sore from yesterday's horse riding.

A little nervous about today. But we're going to get through it. It's going to be good. It's going to be beautiful. We got this. Look at Thank you. Ammon, do you know what these dishes are? Oh, we have another one. It's called Lagman. So, Lagman is the best food of Central Asia. Vegetable and meat with noodles. So, this this is the grass, real Greek grass. And this with one more food, the tomato and cabbage. And your name? Asel. Asel. Like honey. Beautiful. Hello. Reporting live from Isizakqua Lake right now. It is absolutely beautiful.

What's interesting about this trek with Kyas Riders is that there's a little bit of movement which I actually quite like because we're only in Kyrgystan for 5 days instead of doing like a yurt to yurt like horseback riding track for the full 5 days. Kas Rider came up with this incredible tour for us where we're able to kind of see more of Kyrgystan. So, we were horseback riding for the last 2 days and we drove around 3 hours and now we're at Isakqua Lake, which is one of the other like most iconic lakes here in Kyrgyzstan and it's so incredible to see.

Now, we're doing this like a stunning evening hike to get to this insane like panoramic viewpoint. I can't believe I'm here in this part of the world. It's like such a dream come true. Hello. We are currently stopping at this cute little local farm to try horse milk, which will definitely be a first for me. Horses have been used by nomads here for centuries, but like all parts of the verse, like they've been used for food, for milk, obviously for riding. Excited to try some horse milk. Hi. Hi. Hi, cutie.

So, you excited to try horse milk? A little nervous. Looks like we're finishing a whole family gathering. Looks like we have some horse milk here. I'm making a little bit of stage fright. There's like 10 anties looking 10 aes just staring us down. Okay. McDonald's. That's McDonald's. McDonald's. Better. Better than McDonald's. Cut the fresh or fermented one. Oh, that's interesting. I've got to say that horse milk, I've never tasted anything like it. I can't say I loved it. It wasn't fresh horse milk. It was fermented horse milk. It was like sour and like tangy but with this like sharp taste of dirt.

That sounds really nice. Very interesting. Look at this. Look at this. One thing I think is so beautiful is that there's such reverence for people of like the eldest generation in the family. The oldest like great-g grandandmother who's 90 sits at like the highest point, the best spot at the head of the table. And there's like such like reverence and care for them. I feel like unfortunately it doesn't really exist in the states. We really need to incorporate this back into American culture. I'm like, "Oh, that's how elderly should be treated and respected." Like it's such a beautiful thing to see like that level of like family connection and community.

God, there's so many lonely people in the world and then you come to places like this where there's such a close like family unit. It's so beautiful to see and it makes me grateful for my sister. I know we got to stick together. Oh, hello. Can you believe that in this background we're still on the Kyrgystan we saw yesterday? We're starting this morning at a place called Fairy Tale Canyon. Is not what I expected in Kyrgyzstan. And so we're starting with a quick little hike and we're heading out for some eagle hunting.

I mean, we're not eagle hunting, but we're going to see the traditional eagle hunting. I think what's cool about Kyrgystan and is like completely surprising me is that you have so many different climates in just like a couple hour drive. There's like so many things to explore, discover, and learn about. Let's go from the beginning. There should be a connection between. Oh, y'all see careful, careful gas station hall. I was like, I have to get these socks. I don't even know what they say, but I wanted to get a souvenir from my boyfriend.

And then our guide told us it says horse milk is energy 100% charge which could not be better cuz I just had horse milk yesterday. Did we pick the right socks on? Best one. We are getting our steps in today and I cannot believe we were in like this desert and literally like a 45minute drive away. But now I feel like I'm in the Swiss Alps. Kickers has everything. What do you think, Sage? I've never been to Switzerland or the Dolommites or anything. So this is like blowing my mind. The biggest waterfall I've ever seen.

This is insane. Really? Yeah. I don't think I've seen this too many waterfalls. What have you seen? I've never seen it big. It's pretty big, too. We've been on the run. We road tripped around. We horsebacked. We tracked. We did everything. We truly slept in a different bed every night since getting From yurts to guest houses to now a hotel, which is welcome to have a proper shower. We've been blown away by Kyrkystan. I think it's such an exceptional country. And I'm also really glad that we booked with the tour company.

I would recommend. You can kind of pull it off on your own, but there's certain elements that just helped so much having a guy. We kept joking our guy Aman was literally like the most popular man in Kyrgystan. Like he knew everybody and he got us into like so many different cool unique experiences we wouldn't have been able to get to experience otherwise. So from like a safety perspective, like I think Kyrgystan feels very safe if you want to come on your own. But if you want that more like unique in-depth experience, I would recommend hiring somebody.

And Kirus Riders like crushed it. And if you also want to do more of like the nature tour like we did, you definitely need a car. And that's where having a tour guide really helped as well cuz he like knew these roads, knew these routes. So if you are interested in coming to characters, then here are some things you definitely need to know. Packing wise, we packed a mixture of like primarily like a hiking clothes and active wear. So modesty is important. Like try to wear something with like a high neckline, cover your midrift, and if you're starting in the city and it's summer, it's going to be super super hot in the city, but then by the time we were in the yurts in the mountains, it was like 40° Fahrenheit.

So we needed clothes that fit both bills. So definitely pack smart, pack light because you're going to need things for a lot of different climates. Also like infrastructure is great, roads have been good. People have been so kind. So is super modern. Like there's a mango down the street from us. And it's from a cost perspective. Like if you're coming from the US or Europe, it is generally more affordable. Like meals are super cheap. We usually kind of ate on average for around $5. Like coffee is $1 or $2. If you're in the city without a car, get the app Yandex Go.

That's like their go-to app for taxis. Kind of like their Uber. It's just been amazing how over the course of just a few days, this went from a place that was literally just like a pin on a map. People would be like, "Curious, what?" And since coming here, it's all become so meaningful and we've met such amazing people. I'm just so grateful for the experience. So, if you're thinking about doing it, do it. Book the trip. So, now you know about Kystan. Come on over. See you. And don't forget to check out Airl.