Walk to Waterfall Kaindy
Discover the stunning feature of the National Park Sairamsu – the Kaindy Waterfall.
Everything started with an early morning call – at the weekend. But this time it was not the call to stand up and to go to work. It was time for a hiking tour. Our hiking group wanted to meet near Mega Planet shopping mall in Shymkent to leave the noisy city and to discover the calm nature of south Kazakhstan.
After everybody of our group of around 20 people arrived at our meeting point we left the city in the south east direction. We crossed the 3000 years old Sairam – a suburb of Shymkent – and left finally the city borders.
At first we crossed the flat landscape with beautiful grain and green lush grass fields with horses enjoying the fresh grass and the early morning sun. But in the background – toward the sun – the giant mountains of the Sairam Ugam national park came closer. After we crossed the village Kaskasu we entered the valley of the moutain river Sairam Su and entered the Sairam-Ugam National Park. After 60 km and an hour drive from Shymkent we arrived our starting place for our hiking tour.
We took our backpacks, checked our shoes and checked that we have enough water and our launch packages with us – and started our hiking tour to follow the mountain river. Our target for the hiking tour was the waterfall Kaindy, today.
As we walked up the river we saw the still white snow-capped mountains of the Western Tian Shan to our right. The first hour was easy. The path was at the beginning a wide natural road and later we walked on a nice hiking path under the shadow of the trees near the mountain river.
After our first break we arrived a wide green field with wild horses and blue sky. The landscape reminded us a little bit like the Microsoft Windows XP standard background for the desktop.
After we crossed the green field with the horses the tricky part of the hiking tour started. The path became more steep and smaller and we could see for the first time the giant sloping side of the mountain. In this natural stone wall is located the Kaindy Waterfall.
We enjoyed the view and had to go down to the river again. We crossed the wild river again and reached the final ascent to the waterfall. From this point you have to take care a little bit. The last kilometer is very steep and has very loose rubble. Especially in the group you have to take care that you don’t hurt another member of your hiking group by a falling or rolling stone.
Unexpected at the base of the mountain slope we could walked to the left into a rocket crevice. And we’ve got an amazing view: the Kaindy Waterfall.
The height and sound was really impressive. We decided to make our launch break on the base of the Waterfall. We made thousands of photos. After we recharged our power through our lunch break we started to walk back. The descent through the loose rubble was tricky again – but we made it.
During walking back we could enjoy another view into the Sairam Su valley. It feels a little bit like the European alps – but with less tourists. After we reached the green field with the wild horses again, we decided to don’t walk back the same way home. We wanted to walk to the top of the hill to our right. It was easy to walk up on the green grass and the walk up was worth to do it.
The view into the steppe was wonderful. The small green hills of the steppe are amazing. Walking down became a little bit tricky because our feets went more and more weak. But after 30 minutes walking down to the river we arrived at our minibus. We finished our nice tour to the Kaindy Waterfall.
The walk from parking place to the Kaindy Waterfall was around 20 km (there and back). We’ve never been in this National park before. When we have seen it with our own eyes, we were surprised again, that Kazakhstan have so much nice and fantastic nature to discover.
More informations about the national park: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayram-Ugam_National_Park