Jeti-Ögüz means Seven Bulls, and from a distance the name fits. A wall of iron-red rock rises above the pastures south of Lake Issyk-Kul, cut by wind and water into a row of rounded bluffs that look like a herd of bulls lying down. The cliffs have been a protected natural monument since 1975. Just to the north, one ridge is split cleanly in two, and it is known as the Broken Heart rock. A single Kyrgyz legend explains both formations. Two khans went to war after one carried off the other's wife. A feast was called to settle the quarrel, and seven bulls were killed for it. As the seventh fell, the first husband killed the woman rather than let his rival keep her. Her heart became the split rock, the story says, and the seven bulls became the ridge.
The rock never looks the same twice. In the cool of morning it takes the colour of rust, under midday sun it glows orange, and toward evening it deepens to a burning red, with green meadows in front and the snow-capped Tian Shan behind. A short walk leads into the gorge, where spruce forest opens onto Kok-Jayik, the Valley of Flowers, an alpine meadow that fills with colour in early summer. An hour further on, the Maiden's Braids waterfall drops through the trees in thin strands. At the mouth of the valley stands a sanatorium built in 1927 around hot springs, and it still takes guests. In summer the pastures fill with grazing horses and yaks, shepherds set up their yurts, and visitors are handed bowls of kumis, fermented mare's milk. Nomadic life is still lived here, so you come for the herding camps as much as for the rock.