Tour of Almaty Region: Charyn, Kolsai, Kaindy, Issyk, Assy Plateau · 2 days

Visit to Issyk Lake (1756 m) — conifer-covered slopes, clear water, and burial mounds of Saka kings in the nearby valley. In the first half of the day, head to Assy Plateau (2500 m) — endless alpine meadows, yurt camps of herders, and the Assy-Turgen astronomical observatory. This is one of the darkest skies in Central Asia, where the Milky Way is visible like a geographic line. Closer to lunch, trek to Bear Waterfall, 30 meters high — the roar of water, a rainbow in the spray, and a coolness you can feel a hundred steps before the cascade itself. 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 melts the rocks into copper. The trail runs between jagged towers along the river, and the feeling is as if you have stepped onto a Western film set. 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 forget time and your phone. Closer to lunch, visit Black Canyon with its volcanic walls and narrow passages, a striking dark palette after red Charyn. In the second half of the day, walk around the first Kolsai Lake (1818 m), a turquoise surface surrounded by centuries-old Tien Shan firs. The ringing silence of the mountains, the rare cry of a falcon, and trout that bite right from the shore. After lunch, visit Kaindy Lake, formed after the 1911 earthquake. Fir trunks rise from the water like the masts of a sunken fleet, and the turquoise surface between them makes this a place outside time, one of Kazakhstan’s most recognizable images.