Kok Toberfest

"Hate nature," is his advice, "and let it suffer the humiliations God wills for it." Nature has been "condemned and sentenced to death," and the sentence is just; that is why we must "allow God to flay and crucify us at his pleasure." And it is his pleasure.

The final day in Almaty was spent mostly in bed. The trip to Lake Issyk and Charyn Canyon had been long, and though I found them inspiring, my energies turned bedward. It was good for me to sleep on the scratchy old couch and let myself heal. Though I've been behaving as usual, maybe even pushing myself, I'm not that far away from whatever happened with my brain a few months ago. Sleep is repair. And I listened to my body. 

I also listened to it when it wanted coffee, so I took a mid-afternoon walk to the metro and rode it to the art district. I purposefully took a different station so I could get a better sense of how the whole thing is set up. I wasn't disappointed. Another deep, well-designed station with attractive abstract art and high, vaulted ceilings. They do it right. I bought a metro card for a bookmark. 

Read and wrote in the coffee shop for several hours. I felt pleasantly like myself, buzzed and flowing, taking crazy notes for The Shores of Kentucky. I was happy. There's no reason why I can't be this productive at home.  But I am not. Or I don't FEEL like I am. 

Tried to eat at Hrust Fried Chicken, but it remained closed. Maybe the whole thing is an art project. Ended up at an hilarious local burger place with a hip-hop theme. They gave me a sticker of a Japanese guy flashing gang signs. I kept it.

Very few people speak English here, but communication has been mostly easy, and the baristas and cashiers I've encountered have been patient and curious.

Tore through another chunk of The Land Breakers, really responding to it. I probably wouldn't have when I was younger but more recent life experiences have the themes of family responsibilities and parenting resonating with me. It's also funny and sexy and in a New York Review of Books edition. Anything with that binding automatically feels like "important literature."

Started to get a little stoopid about money. The neighboring countries hate one another's currency, and you can get stuck with it. My primary goal was to have enough to make it to Kyrgyzstan with exactly zero tenge left. Wasted a lot of brain-energy calculating in my head. I kind of couldn't turn it off. Little obsessive mental whirlwinds of receipts and expected prices.

It was definitely the after part of afternoon at this point, and I had to decide if I was going to go home, pack, and get ready for the early, early morning marshrutka or... take the gondola to Kok Tobe.

Kok Tobe is the big mountain that overlooks the city. There's a big viewing platform there and a little theme park. It's the "number one thing to do" in Almaty. It was a little overcast, and despite the long sleep and leisurely day, I was feeling a little fatigued.

Walked back to the metro not really knowing if I was going to do it or not. I've been in this situation fairly frequently, completely unsure whether or not I'll leave the house until I'm suddenly in the street. It's not indecision, really, more like... ambivalence. Will I go to trivia, the movies, accept a friend's invitation? I won't know until I'm doing it.

The moment of truth would come when the metro got to the Kok Tobe-adjacent station. If I got out, I'd go. If I stayed on the train, the next stop would be home. Simon had no idea what Simon would do.

The doors opened, and I got out, joined the flow and let the train go on without me. A decision had been made. Walked in the fading light toward the fascinating Hotel Kazakhstan with its giant gold crown, past an old art-deco movie palace with a Starbucks in the lobby, and entered the lobby of the Gondola Building.

Bought my ticket and went out to where the cars pick you up. Hilariously, there is no one there to help you. I was also alone out there, with no other visitors.

You stand in an area wide enough for maybe four people, and the gondolas come sliding toward you, doors open, and they don't really stop, and you have to just... jump in. Surely this wasn't how it always runs?

But, I guess it was, because I jumped in one of the cars, the doors closed, and the thing hauled me up the mountain. A thrilling, dangerous-feeling ride high above the lights of the city. For some reason, "Hello Dolly" played over an internal loudspeaker.

In the distance, the lights of a roller coaster and Ferris wheel beckoned.

Cute, though small, little park at the top. Gorgeous views of the mountains surrounding the city. It's a pretty place, Almaty, and this view shows it off. I kind of wish I had gone earlier in the day, but I also appreciated the deserted feeling of the place. It was cold, getting dark, and only a few thin-seeming families were shuffling around, peering at the attractions.

There was a costume-photo booth where they doll you up like a Khan, and a cute baby with a fur hat was being encouraged to sit still. The parents declined the offer to have a giant, living falcon sit on the arm of the throne. I gaped at the falcon in awe and fascination.

Bought a magnet and some kind of fancy, zippered bag from a souvenir shoppe. The tote I'd brought with me is starting to fall apart.

On a little raised platform, a statue grouping of The Beatles was nestled next to a speaker playing hilarious broken-English covers of Ticket to Ride and other early hits. A sign said it was the only statue in the world to have all The Beatles together. Can that be true?

The incongruity of it being there at all made me feel like anything was possible.

Shaky gondola ride down. There was weather, and it swayed. I wondered if it would even make the news back home if the thing busted and sent me crashing to the Olympic ice rink far below. It bent but did not break, and I took the brief moment the doors were open in the station to throw myself out of the car.

Happy walk past drunks in the park and drunks in the underpass, and I found a fantastic, cheap grocery store on a street behind the apartment I hadn't taken before. It had been here the whole time. I'd been eating lobster chips when I could have had mysterious yogurt with a lion on the label.

The Cyrillic letters on the yogurt label where the flavor should be looked like they were pronounced "Egypt" to me. What did Egypt-flavored yogurt taste like? I really wanted to know, but I was still in my obsessive tenge-counting mode, and I didn't try it.

Was the lion supposed to be The Sphinx? It's my greatest Almaty regret. Went home to pack, but went to sleep instead. Take that, preparedness! 

Woke up nice and early for the nice and early ride. I was able to use the taxi app, so the ride to the marshrutka station was, like, a dollar. It felt like the perfect punctuation mark. If you combine that ride with the robbery, they averaged to... well, it was still a ripoff, but it was long ago now. I'd celebrated Kok Toberfest since then and delved into the riddle of Egypt-flavored yogurt. Much time had passed.

The marshrutka station was organized as all hell. No shouting or pushing. They had a COUNTER. Where you could buy a TICKET from a TICKET-SELLER. It was so damned civilized.

I surrendered my luggage, took a seat, read the Land Breakers in the friscillating dawnlight, and
waited for the driver to get hungry, so I could throw my remaining tenge at a coffee cup.

Farewell, Almaty. You were an easy introduction to the 'stans. I can't say I saw Kazakhstan any more than someone who spends four days in Los Angeles can say they saw the United States, but I did my best.

Wild Kyrgyzstan awaits!