Almaty Region Tour: Charyn, Kolsai, Kaindy and Altyn-Emel · 2 days

Exploring Altyn-Emel National Park, 4600 km² of desert landscapes with herds of kulans and goitered gazelles. The scale is felt physically, like in Arizona. In the first half of the day, climb Singing Dune, a 150-meter dune 1.5 kilometers long. On the descent, the dry sand hums with a deep sound, like the engine of a warming-up car, and the sound really comes from under your feet. Closer to lunch, stop at the Aktau chalk mountains, pink, green and blue bands of Paleocene rock. A colorful echo of an ancient sea that disappeared 50 million years ago. In the second half of the day, stop at the Katutau colored mountains, volcanic rocks weathered by wind into sculptural forms. Here, geology seems to have decided to work by hand. Return to Almaty by evening.

Descend into Charyn Canyon and walk through the “Valley of Castles”, 154 kilometers of red sandstone where the midday sun turns the cliffs copper. The trail runs between serrated towers along the river, with the feeling that you have stepped onto the set of a Western. In the first half of the day, take in Moon Canyon, Charyn’s neighboring valley with gray and bluish rock formations. An otherworldly landscape where it is easy to lose track of time and your phone. Closer to lunch, visit Black Canyon with its volcanic walls and narrow passages, a dark counterpoint after the red of Charyn. In the second half of the day, walk around the first Kolsai Lake (1818 m), a turquoise expanse surrounded by centuries-old Tien Shan fir trees. The ringing silence of the mountains, the rare cry of a falcon and trout that bite right from the shore. After lunch, transfer to Saty village, a mountain aul in the Ile-Alatau National Park, the starting base for Kolsai and Kaindy. Guesthouses serve homemade beshbarmak, manti and herbal tea. By evening, visit Kaindy Lake, formed after the 1911 earthquake. Spruce trunks rise from the water like the masts of a sunken fleet, and the turquoise surface between them is a place out of time, one of the most recognizable images of Kazakhstan.