Wow… Five countries (Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Armenia) in six weeks. Mehmet Özbalci organized this tour through his company Fantastic Photo Tours, based in Istanbul, Turkey. We used him in 2016 for a tour of Turkey, and liked his approach so much that we decided to use him again for these countries. I thought we would […]
Kazakhstan 3 – Kaiyndy Lake
One of our destinations today was Kaiyndy lakes national park, a lake created as the result of an earthquake induced landslide blocking the river, in the Kolsai Lake National Park. The trees in the region were flooded and died. However, the water is so cold that the trees did not deteriorate, and instead remain standing, making an […]
Kazakhstan 2 – Singing Dunes
While driving to our Kazakhstan destination the next day, we saw a herd of horses standing in a pond not far from the road. As is common with this tour, that meant stopping the bus, and getting out for half an hour of photography. The horses did indeed present wonderful images to capture (bottom). However, we were […]
Kazakhstan 1 – Almaty
We have now left Kyrgyzstan and entered into Kazakhstan. Within the group, we refer to the three countries we have visited as “the Stans,” because the separate names are so long and tongue twisting to say. We stopped at a photogenic church by a small lake for a reflection shot. The weather cooperated, with almost no wind, resulting […]