Waterfalls at Iskander Kul area

Another beautiful morning on our holiday at the lake Iskander Kul.  We decided to go for a hike after breakfast and visit a waterfall...sometimes called the "Niagara of the Fanns".  The staff at the tourist center was saying that it was not a good place to take kids, but we didn't find out if it was because of the hike or because of the waterfall.  Nevertheless we all wanted to go.  You can always turn back or wait somewhere if the going gets too hard on the little ones, we decided.

The weather was perfect.  

And the views were breathtakingly beautiful. 

Family hike near lake Iskander Kul

Looking back we could see the tourist center by the lake, partly hidden under the big trees.

The tourist center by the emerald green Iskander Kul lake

I civilized myself and found out the names of the three rivers that feed into the Iskander Kul lake: Sarytag, Hozormech and Serima.  There is one river that originates from it,  the Iskander-Darya River, which is seen in this picture below.  I enjoyed watching how the river flows out of the lake much like someone was slowly tilting a giant bowl of milky green water and it just flows and flows out...

...and forms the narrow and feisty Iskander-Darya that we were going to follow today.

The valley was truly beautiful and it was a joy to hike there.  There were no steep climbs; we were following a narrow path close to the river and the children had no difficulties with keeping up with us for the one kilometer hike.

Looking back to the lake:

The valley is rich with flowers and butterflies!  There were so many flapping their pretty colorful wings around us.

Finally we arrived to the falls.  

The river plunges nearly 40 meters down between the steep rock walls that look like they are coming together above it.  

Here is a areal view of the place where we were, the iron platform was strong but not pretty :) 

The platform made it possible to see the falls in a really amazing way, but I could not make myself to walk all the way to the end.  

Others had no difficulties in making use of the platform. 

These are my children whom I carried for nine months in my womb and gave birth to with pain, whom I cherish and if you go and fall down it will be awful so lets just go back to the firm ground and eat some lunch, okay? Children? Come to mommy? 

It was a wonderful mixture of awe and shuddering seeing that fall. 

See the bird flying?  The white little spot? They had homes on the rocky walls right by the waterfall.

I wouldn't be able not sleep there...all that noise! 

We had lunch by the waterfall and then we got back 'home'. 

Where I found out that I had missed some spots with sunscreen.

I don't like sunburn. 

Amen.