Almaty means apple!

The first eating apples in the world came from the mountains that surround Almaty. They have proven it with DNA testing. Here is a statue of a traditional Kazakh girl with an apple in an Almaty park.

Remember how I told you about Apple Soup that I had in the mountains in Uzbekistan? They had many wild apple trees growing in the mountains here too. I took the bus up to the nearby ski area yesterday and here is one of the trees next to a rushing river (but not the Russian River... I miss that one, say hello to it tomorrow for me!).

There are also these kinds of trees... I think of them as wishing trees. I don't know exactly their history but I have seen them in Uzbekistan too. I believe that in special places that are beautiful, or meaningful (like cemeteries or religious places) people make a wish or express a hope and then tie a bit of cloth onto a tree where other people have done the same. The interesting thing here is that a lot of the cloths are actually plastic bags or baby wipes. I guess that's what people travel with now!

 Speaking of traveling in Kazakhstan these days, I took a picture for Daddy of the top of the climb. There was a man with a little van and a sparkling espresso machine in the back.