{"id":2911,"date":"2012-09-18T12:41:57","date_gmt":"2012-09-18T16:41:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janetgover.com\/?p=2911"},"modified":"2012-09-18T12:41:57","modified_gmt":"2012-09-18T16:41:57","slug":"nice-view-all-it-needs-is-some-oxygen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/?p=2911","title":{"rendered":"Nice view – all it needs is some oxygen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Look at those mountains \u2013 Wow!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Me and mountains...<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yes \u2013 I do look smug \u2013 not because I climbed them (because I didn’t) \u2013 but because I am somewhere I never dreamed I would be\u2026<\/p>\n

The mountains of Kazakhstan – and it was AMAZING!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I was scheduled to be in Kazakhstan for just a few days \u2013 and had only one day off. It wasn’t even a whole day, when you consider I arrived in the country at 2:00 am and got to my hotel after 3:00 AM. I still didn’t want to waste it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thanks to the generosity of a colleague \u2013 I didn’t.<\/p>\n

Almaty is Kazakhstan’s largest city (but not the capital) and it is dominated by these magnificent mountains.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The mountains seen from Almaty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It’s a long way north of the Himalayas, but from what I could guess looking at a map, part of the same block of mountains \u2013 just on the other side. That’s my guess, you understand. I am no expert on such matters.<\/p>\n

The people of Almaty love their mountains. They ski there in winter \u2013 but summer is just as fabulous. To get there, they have built a cable car. It runs in three sections \u2013 each steeper and a little less sturdy-looking than the one below it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The second cable car<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And the first aid station did not inspire confidence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The first aid station<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The cable car ends at about 10,000 feet – where there is snow all year round.\u00a0 The air is thin \u2013 but the view is to die for.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The top of a very big hill<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On the way back down we stopped for lunch at the lowest of the cable car station \u2013 and ate our food on a terrace overlooking the mountains, while a band played a really\u2026 interesting\u2026 cover version of Hotel California<\/p>\n

From the cable car, we spotted quite a few grazing horses. Horse meat is a dietary staple here \u2013 but out of respect for the ponies I loved as a girl, I declined.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
There were several groups of horses grazing on the mountain.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That’s not to say it’s a poor country \u2013 or not all of it. . There’s a lot of oil money around here \u2013 as you can tell from the sparkly new ski chalets that seem to be springing up.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
A nice weekender...<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But wherever I am in the world \u2013 some things never change. Many a boy has carved his girlfriend’s name on a tree trunk \u2013 but how many would do this?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
This must have taken a lot of work!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is taken from a height of a couple of hundred feet \u2013 so it is pretty big. That’s a lot of rocks to move. I guess they really were in love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Look at those mountains \u2013 Wow! Yes \u2013 I do look smug \u2013 not because I climbed them (because I didn’t) \u2013 but because I am somewhere I never dreamed I would…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-travels"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7g6jm-KX","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2911\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}