last late post

My dad and I took a side trip to Babugent (south and a bit west of Nalchik, as seen on the map). We visited Zina:
Babugent is a little village in Kabardino-Balkaria that is composed entirely of Balkar people. The Balkars are Turkic, which means they are related to the peoples of Central Asia. Their language is related to Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Turkish, etc. It was like being back in C.Asia. Babugent:
Zina was incredibly hospitable, and after drinking tea and eating Balkar food and visiting for a while, she called up a neighbor with a car to take us on a tour of the local attractions - the mountains. So Zina, two of her granddaughters, me, my dad, the neighbor, and his little daugher all piled into his tiny Zhiguli and took off up the road:
I took a lot of pictures. The weather was overcast and rainy, though, and many are not blogworthy. It was a photographically disappointing trip. The scenery was amazing and I can't convey it to others. Sad. But anyway, the first thing was one of the "Blue Lakes":
Incredibly reflective water. It was only about the size of a pond, but our tour guides said divers have gone down as far as 150m (450 ft) and still not found the bottom. hm. The water was super clear, and like a sheet of glass, only marred when it started raining softly. Beautiful. We walked around it, where old Balkar women sell things on the sidewalk. One of them seemed to know our friend:
Then we got back in the car and kept driving up. Eventually we were on a narrow road up in the mountains, with one side of the road right up against the face of the mountain, and the other falling sharply into a gorge below, with a river rushing through it and mountains on the other side, all covered by lush green foliage:
I really wished for a better camera that day.
All pictures can be enlarged by clicking. Really amazing to be up there in person, even if it was dark and overcast.
neighbor's cute daughter:
wildflowers:
still the endless powerlines:
tunnel through the mountain:
Then we came back down the mountain, were fed more tea and food, and packed onto the bus home bearing gifts. A great visit. I love post-Soviet peoples.
I'm not sure why this took me over a month to post. But there it is. I'm all caught up now.