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SORTEO NAVIDAD YWH 2024

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Experience in Kyrgyzstan

Only those who dream can fly

Today September 1, 2021 I embark on another new adventure, an adventure which has required almost two months of physical and mental preparation. This time it will not be here near the roe deer, nor the deer, nor the pigs of our beloved and beautiful Iberian Peninsula, this time the challenge and adventure goes much further, this time it was going to be much bigger... I would dare to say that it is the dream that every high mountain hunter would like to see sometime in his life and of course, if he could, touch that imposing and majestic animal. The king of kings, yes friends, this time I embark to the distant, high and steep mountains of Kyrgyzstan in search of the great Marco Polo and the Mid Asian Ibex. Who would have thought that, at the age of twenty-five, I would be packing my suitcase to face such an adventure. Of course, and for the peace of mind of many, I will not be the one who will take the shot (with a rifle) but I will take the shot from my camera and if I am honest, I prefer it, I still do not deserve to pull the trigger, I think I still have a lot to learn and experience before seeing that animal behind the crosshairs of a viewfinder.

Our mission will be to record the hunting of these two animals as no one has ever done before and of course, in the most Young Wild Hunters style, always seeking to highlight the economic and cultural contribution that these hunts generate to small and remote communities.

It is mid-morning and Luis and I were at home finalizing the preparations and closing suitcases, we are ready and a little nervous. Already at the airport, we met with the organizer of the hunt, Luis Miguel de la Rubia of the hunting company Spanish Ibex, a great passionate about hunting and a true professional with over 40 years of experience in hunts of all kinds, although if there is something in which Luis Miguel excels is in mountain hunts and the big five of Africa. The hunters Jorge and Xavier were with him, so we could make the first contact and get to know each other in person. The first impression was very good, two experienced hunters with multiple adventures behind them and with infinite desire to fulfill the dream of any hunter in the high mountains. Their objective was the mid Asian Ibex and the Marco Polo.

The trip was going to be about 1 day, we were flying first to Istanbul and from there we would take another flight to the capital of Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek. On the plane on the way to our final destination, I looked out the window and began to see those majestic and chilling mountains... it is then when the feelings and emotions begin to bloom and I begin to think to myself about everything I have lived to have arrived at that precise moment, what am I doing here? Am I really going to Kyrgyzstan? It was something difficult to assimilate and imagine, ten years ago I was on my couch watching in Caza y Pesca the great Juan Delibes in one of his numerous hunting reports, wishing someday to be him, to have the opportunity to show through my eyes the hunts, defending and demonstrating the importance of hunting and the passion that we hunters have for nature and its animals ... and beyond reality, I was flying over the house of the animal that every hunter would like not to hunt, but simply to see once in his life, the king of kings, the great Marco Polo.

Once we landed and with our bags already in our possession, a couple of guides, Rasull and Nurbeck, were waiting for us. Rasull, Kyrgyz by birth, was going to be our interpreter, fluent in English and Spanish, he was also a hunter and would accompany us throughout our adventure. Nurbeck, also Kyrgyz by birth, was the leader of the hunting guides team, besides being in charge of all the logistics and care of the hunters during the hunt.

We got in the van and headed into town to enjoy the last decent meal we would have for the next ten days. In these moments when you eat at a set table, with a hot plate and cutlery before embarking on an adventure of such caliber, every bite tastes like glory, your mind knows that this is unlikely to be repeated in the depths of the mountains.

With our stomachs full, we started our last stage of the trip, six hours by van to the base camp. On the way we were passing through different small towns, large lakes and different landscapes that this great country did not offer in its path, but the terrain was still not as I had seen by plane, there were mountains, but they were not excessively large, I was somewhat surprised...

Where are those mountains I glimpsed from the plane?

Suddenly the asphalt became a dirt road and we began to take a track that went into a valley, little by little we were gaining height and we were climbing to the height of the top of those mountains, until, finally, at the top, we reached a huge steppe and ... There they were! we had reached the base of the mountains, a range of gigantic and rocky mountain range could be seen in the distance, we were getting closer. I must admit that my hair stood on end.

Was I really living what I was seeing?

Yes, I was about to enter the depths of Kyrgyzstan.

As we approached the mountain range, I looked out of the car window and enjoyed the fresh air and the sight of the wild horses riding as fast as we did across the meadows.... it seemed as if they were welcoming us.

We crossed a river and saw the first Kyrgyz Yurts, we turned leaving a mountain on the right and the river on the left, entering a huge valley. And there in the middle of nowhere was the base camp, three wooden cabins and a truck rail transformed into a dining room and kitchen. The best of all were the views and the river next to us. The sun was beginning to disappear and the cold was starting to get into our bones.

Luis Miguel, Luis and I would sleep in one cabin and Jorge and Xavier in the other. We would spend the night and the next day the adventure that would change our lives would begin.

That night at dinner, we decided how we were going to split up, who and what name each group would have. The Caterpillars Team formed by Xavier, Luis Miguel and Luis and the Snow Leopard Team formed by Jorge and I. We are ready!

A new day dawns and the whole camp is already finalizing the details. Xavier and Jorge are setting up their rifles, Luis Miguel is managing and coordinating the guides, and Luis and I are preparing all the camera equipment.

 
We knew when we were leaving, but not when we were going to return. The idea of that first day was to hunt an entire mountain all day, on both sides, and finish both in a small cabin in the middle of the valley where we would camp, the Orugas Team would hunt on the north side and we would hunt on the south side. The difference was that the Caterpillars Team would leave on horseback from the camp and we would go by car to another place to take other horses and get to the northeast face of the mountain.

We got into the car and started to move towards unknown territory. While we were driving through that huge valley, from time to time we could see small yurts and rails "houses" where the shepherds of the area lived during half of the year. One hour by car and finally we arrived to the other camp where they were waiting for us with the horses ready to ride, but before, they prepared us an excellent and hot meal that we enjoyed until the last bite, in these places you know that these moments must be taken advantage of and enjoyed to the fullest.

With our bellies full, we got on the horses, I got a brown male with white stained front legs, I called him socks.

 
We started the ascent and as we had planned, the idea would be to hunt from top to bottom, crown the summit and go peeking into different ravines to locate the Marco Polos and the Ibex before they located us. You cannot imagine the feeling of freedom and happiness that one experiences on the back of that horse, with an unsurpassable landscape and on the way to look for the animals at four thousand five hundred meters above sea level.

The ascent was slow, but without pause... it took us about 5 hours to reach the top of the first mountain. Once at the top, our guide went down with the hunter to do one of those "asomadas". It was the first canyon. I stayed because in principle it was very difficult to find anything and they decided that it was better not to get off the horse with all that it meant, lowering the tripod, the other backpack with the objectives ... "it was going to be something fast" they told me. The minutes passed and nobody appeared... it was very strange, they had to be watching something, I tied my horse to Jorge's, took my things and started to record. I went past the first rocks and saw no one, I kept leaning out of the ravine trying to look for them without making too much noise and imagining where they could be, suddenly about twenty meters away I saw Jorge and Sherpa lying down watching something, they kept making signals to each other? I began to advance towards them, I put myself behind them and asked:

What's up, do you see anything?

Jorge turns around and looks at me and says:

Marco Polos Ignacio, 6 Marco Polos but small....

I get my camera ready and start filming. Seeing the great Marco Polo up close was finally going to be true... I was going to be able to capture this majestic animal on my camera.

The scene was worthy of a movie, the Marco Polos about thirty hundred meters away in the middle of the ravine, climbing the mountainside with an inclination of 70% at four thousand meters high as if nothing and in practically what we took 2 hours to climb, they had already achieved it in 2 minutes.

Finally the herd was bigger, between fifteen - twenty specimens distributed among females, calves and young males. But it didn't matter, first attempt and I already had some spectacular scenes of the animal and besides, I had finally been able to see him up close... live and direct.

This little peek practically ended our day, it was time to pack up and go back to camp. At six o'clock the sun set and we were still four hours away on horseback.

Of course, we were still hunting, but focused on getting there during the day and not having to go down those rocks on the back of our horses in the dark, and of course, if there was any chance that on the way down we would come across any animal... of course we would take the opportunity.

Once we descended to the valley and had that view of both sides, with those mega mountains and rocks, the snow leopard, the hunter par excellence, came to my mind. Because, if it is difficult for us with weapons, imagine him alone with his teeth, claws and expertise, running after his prey on those steep slopes, an animal that certainly deserves all our respect and worthy of admiration.

We saw the small cabin and the Caterpillar Team had already arrived, apparently without luck, apparently they saw a couple of Ibex females and little more, we were going to change the area for sure, the animals were not in those mountains.

Third day of hunting and we were moving further and further away from the main camp, 12/14 hours on horseback. We no longer slept in cabins, now we slept in tents and hunted all day long, there was no time for rest. That night, we went to bed early because the next day we were going to go to a kind of hole where there were many meadows with lots of food and they had a river in the middle, they knew that the Marco Polos frequented that place. As they say, "The place to be".

It was four o'clock in the morning and the alarm clock goes off, our tent was totally frozen by the mist from our heat and breathing, instantly reminding us where we were. We quickly changed inside the tent, drank some water, prepared some hot tea and totally at night and without seeing anything, we got on top of the horses. This was another of the most special moments for me, I remember going with the panty up to the line with my eyes, looking at the sky and seeing millions of stars, we were hunting the Marco Polo, it was an experience that I will remember forever.


The idea with this early start was to try to minimize that the Marco Polos would see or hear us approaching those meadows, the good thing is that in the middle of that hole there was a kind of channel with a river, which made it easier to approach without them seeing us and also with the river our sound would be camouflaged, we had everything perfectly measured ....

Let's see how it works out!

With a little more light, although still at night, we reached the point of no return, we left the horses so that the noise of the clash of hooves with the stones would not alert any animal that might be there. We continued climbing little by little, slowly but surely, with time on our side. We managed to reach the end of the channel, now we had to wait and begin to locate animals to which we could make an entrance. We climbed up the left slope of the canal and began to look for them through the binoculars. It didn't take us thirty seconds to locate life! On the opposite slope we had a mixed group of Ibex and Marco Polo females.

The moment we saw the first group, we were very nervous, we knew we had done things right, we had managed to get close without them hearing us, we were in a super strategic position and we just had to wait and watch the movement of the animals because at this time of year they need to eat if or if they need to fatten up for the winter. The minutes and hours passed and we did not see anything worthwhile. We started to climb a channel little by little and suddenly one of the Sherpas stopped in his tracks and started to call his other companion. They start looking through the binoculars and become very nervous. Then, one of the Sherpas tells the hunter by gestures to get ready, to load a bullet, because he is going to have a shot. Jorge and I were stuck inside the channel, without much of a visual around us, and all we could do was imagine that something was going to happen soon, but we didn't know where or when.

The surprising thing is that suddenly the Sherpas told us that we had to climb up to their position and from there we would try to locate the animals they were seeing, but while we were climbing the slope one of the Sherpas looked through his binoculars and quickly told us that we had to get back into the channel. Something was coming towards our position and we had to camouflage ourselves, luckily we had a big rock nearby where we could take cover and where Jorge could rest his rifle and make a stable shot. At this moment your head works in automatic mode, you know that your mission is to be recording all that sequence and in my head the only thing I was thinking was that something was going to happen soon, they are all very nervous and I had to make the best of the moment and fulfill my mission.

I didn't turn the camera off for a single second.

We are on the rock and we start to wait... It is then when, on the opposite slope, above the channel where we are, at about 180 meters in the viewfinder we see a lonely Marco Polo .... we could only see his head.

What a spectacle of an animal and what a piece of horns, I thought.

When we saw that first Marco Polo and knew he was so close.... we couldn't believe it. The group began to take things very seriously because behind that first Marco Polo, more and more began to emerge, each one bigger than the last... we couldn't believe it... and only 180 meters away, it was a dream come true.

Of course, shivering and with our nerves on edge while we were enjoying that picture, we had to decide which animal we were going to choose for the shot. From the group appeared a big Marco Polo that stood out from the rest and was in fifth position from left to right. I was totally trembling, I did not know at what moment Jorge was going to take the shot, I could not ask practically anything, nor speak... suddenly I heard "the fifth, the fifth from the left" I took the camera, looked for him and found him and suddenly ... time stopped.

(Boom)

It has just happened, the 270 SM.... has been detonated, we have shot the Marco Polo at 180 meters... the animal accused the shot, but as if nothing, he followed the group as normal the first 30 meters of ascent, but the shot was very well placed and little more could do.... begins to fall...

We got him, we got him!

Jorge and I hugged each other and started to come back to life, we did not know how we had just lived that scene... so many males together, all the effort to have come this far and also to be able to hunt him in that way and having recorded it perfectly... What more could we ask for?

Without wasting a second of time, we go in search of him, we want to see him up close. We get to the animal and... an explosion of emotions. What an amazing animal, look at the horns, touch the skin and see how insulating it is!


This is where the moment of truth came, where I was finally going to fulfill more than just a dream. In my life I could have never imagined to have reached where we were and even less to have touched a Marco Polo and there I was, in the middle of nowhere with the Kyrgyz and Jorge enjoying that special and unique moment.

The dream of a child who never thought it could come true had come true: I had hunted, recorded and touched the king of kings.



I had in my hands those tremendous horns of the great Marco Polo.


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