📷 Cape Turtle Head

I always try to find additional interesting places lying on the route of the trip from one main point to another and I am very happy when it works out. So, when I was planning a short week-long trip around Lake Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan, we planned to visit many good and quite popular places. But at the same time, I was looking for some other small, potentially interesting places where I could stop for a short time just along the way. That's how I found on Google maps this small... I don't even know what to call it - cape? - with the funny name Turtle Head on the western shore of the lake.

There is no particularly large settlement nearby, mostly meadows where cows and horses graze, and semi-desert land. There is no paved or even gravel road leading to the cape, and the main road we were driving along runs 4 kilometers from the shore, so there is little chance of accidentally getting here. But on the map there were traces of small roads that are visible when someone does drive in these places periodically, so I decided to try to go there.

And, as it turned out, it was not in vain. For those people who were without a drone, it was interesting to simply wander along the deserted and wild shore of the lake, admire the shallow water and sandbank just beyond the end of the cape.

Well, and from above, a very nice picture opened up to me: a completely bizarrely shaped sandbank, water shimmering in all shades in the shallows, and a bottom relief pattern that was visible as if on the palm of your hand.

By the way, the shape of this sandbank really does resemble the head of a turtle with an open beak. The name on the map didn't deceive :)

On the sandbank, this small patch of land, bushes and grass grow.

By the way, someone clearly sometimes drives a car onto this sandbank - you can see the tracks of the wheels going into the water at the edge of the cape and appearing further. Maybe they do this when there is a little less water in the lake: it seems to me that if the water were even 10-15 cm lower, you could drive there along the dry isthmus in the narrowest place. Well, or it's possible to try on off-road cars. I didn't do this, a good picture from above was enough for me :)