A Kyrgyz adventure

A horseback journey through the spectacular untamed landscapes of Sary-Chelek in Kyrgyzstan leaves an everlasting impression

- Alexandra Tolstoy

"YOU EITHER pull yourself together or leave now!" It was seven o'clock on a January morning in the 1990s and heavy grey clouds loomed low through the windows of the Canary Wharf trading floor. Tears pricked my eyes as I glanced out to the forest of high-rise buildings and back to my boss. In that moment I opted for adventure and in 1999, armed with a grant from the Royal Geographical Society, three girlfriends and I set out to become the first people since Marco Polo to ride 5,000 miles of the Silk Road on horse and camel, from Merv in Turkmenistan to Xian in China.

Of all the countries I rode through in the most colourful of decades that followed our nine-month trip, it was Kyrgyzstan that enraptured me. I had never encountered such natural beauty. Alpine meadows of wild poppies, tulips, marigolds, peonies and no weeds as the land has never been ploughed. Snow-peaked mountains, sparkling rivers, yurts pitched on the remotest of plateaus, enchanting villages of adobe houses, their roofs stuffed with hay and their gardens bursting with vegetables and hollyhocks. This was my idea of heaven. And so my business was born and I decided to bring others here, riding and camping for a week at a time in my favourite part of the country, Sary-Chelek: a special destination even for the Kyrgyz.

A uniting experience