Today we made our way from Bokonbayevo on the southwest side of the Issyk-Kul lake all the way over to Karakol on the southeast side.

It sounds daunting but it’s actually only 180km away and takes between 3-4 hours to get there.

Before our bus trip over there though, there was a little matter of an Eagle Hunting show we were set to attend.

Eagle Hunting Show

One thing that Bokonbayevo is known for is their prolific amount of eagle hunters and guides.

It’s actually the main reason visitors make a pitstop to this tiny town of just 13,000 people.

And, well, we’re visitors so let’s go see some eagles!

There are a ton of tours that offer you basically the same show.

Some are from here in town and others are day trips from cities like Bishkek.

My guesthouse host set us up with a tour for 5000som ($80) which was by far the cheapest option out there when I was researching this a couple of months ago.

Other tours were in the $100-$150 range.

And that’s not $80 per person, nope, that’s $80 total for the two of us.

The guesthouse had arranged for us to be picked up at 9am this morning and while I was up and about at 7:30, Nathan was in rough shape.

He’s come down with some bug the last day or so and it wiped him out yesterday going on into today.

I called our host to push our show back to 11am and thankfully they accommodated us.

At 11am our driver from yesterday picked us up and drove us 15 minutes out of town to a open field area surrounded by mountains.

And then I heard the first “eeeeyah, eeeyah” screech of an eagle and my smile went from ear to ear.

Over the next hour our guide showed us how the eagle hunted and told us about nomadic life.

The show was fascinating just watching the eagle swooping in at the site of food 100 yards away.

But that wasn’t what we paid $40 for, nope, it was for the most awesome photo opportunity I’ve ever been apart of.

The chance to mount a horse and sit there with an eagle perched to your arm.

Now, that’s what we paid good money for!

Obviously I have a few videos and a ton of photos and you can see them all in the Photo Gallery at the end of this blog.

It was truly one of my favorite experiences ever when it comes to travelling and that’s saying alot because I’ve done alot of cool stuff over the years.

Bus from Bokonbayevo to Karakol

At noon we arrived back in town with the plan to wait for a marshrutka (local bus) to take us to Karakol.

We had taken a similar bus into town yesterday and knew it would cost 500som ($8) and that there’d be a wait for it to load up.

However, there was no marshrutka at the bus area and, before we could even contemplate how long this process would take, we were corralled into a minibus that had 5 others waiting.

I use the word “minibus” quite lightly as it was basically someone’s 7 seater SUV.   The price tag was double at 1000som ($16) but it was leaving right away and, honestly, we just wanted to get to Karakol.

So, off we went crammed into this little SUV.

The road to Karakol is currently being paved so for the first portion of the ride, it was smooth sailing on a nice freshly paved multi lane highway.

The second part of the trip was, well, pretty damn bumpy.

But, eventually, after 2 1/2 hours we arrived in Karakol.

A change of plans

We checked in at 3pm and the original plan was to head back out to do a day trip to the nearby natural landmarks of Jeti Oguz and the Barskoon Waterfall.

Well, with Nathan being sick and a later start today, we decided to scrap that idea and just relax the rest of the day.

Eventually we did head into town to grab some dinner and, well, that was pretty much it for the day.

Nathan went to bed early and I just hung out in the common room typing up this blog and watching some videos.

Honestly, we need these kind of days sprinkled in our trip as a month is a long time to constantly be doing something every day.

Even having said that, we still saw an amazing eagle show earlier today and, for me, that’s a great day.