Tourist Places in Kazakhstan.

“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls” 

Anaïs Nin. “The Diary of Anaïs”.

 Tourism Exhibition in Kazakhstan.

The Kumakapa gorge is located in the northeastern part of the Mangyshlak peninsula, 7 kilometers north of the Taushyk village, 13 kilometers east and slightly south of the Sarytash pier in the Tupkaragan district of the Mangistau region.
The southern end of the Kumakapa gorge is formed by the southeastern spurs of the Kaushe mountains and the southwestern spurs of the Emda mountains, which stretch in the meridional direction. The northeastern section of the Tupkaragan plateau is cut by a whole series of large canyons and gorges.
One of them is the through Kumakapa gorge, winding from south to north in the massif of the plateau section for 13 kilometers. Through this gorge you can get from the Taushyk village to the sea coast. But this path may not always be convenient.
The road here is steppe and not quite simple, sometimes even tiresome. A salty stream flows along the bottom of the gorge, sometimes getting lost in stone dams or thickets of tamarisk, a local shrub that grows on saline soils and beautifully blooms in spring, for which it is called steppe lilac.
In winter, in severe frosts, the river is blocked by ice, which increases its level. In hot periods, it dries up. There are also strong floods in the gorge after heavy rains. Then violent streams of water wash away the beaten track, even changing the course of the river.
Local Kazakhs say that in 1919, under one of the rocky landslides, a whole village died here. Kumakape Gorge is not a delight, but it attracts with its sharp turns and constant change of scenery. On summer nights, hordes of mosquitoes haunt here.
But the gorge allows you to get to the sea coast relatively quickly from the continental part of the peninsula. However, the coast in this part is not very convenient for swimming. It is very shallow, you need to walk from a hundred meters to be able to swim.
When you leave the gorge in a northern direction, a surprise awaits you. All over the world, stone megalithic structures bear the seal of mystery and inaccessibility of knowledge. There are such mysterious structures in the area of ​​the Shytsha well, which is located at the mouth of the Kumakape gorge.
On five sites located along the sea coast with a total area of ​​more than 5 hectares, huge slabs, sometimes more than 2 meters long, were raised. When set at an angle, they look like a chaotic heap. No archaeological study has been carried out at this site, therefore nothing can be said about the exact time of the appearance and purpose of this complex.
It is clear that the ancient inhabitants of Mangystau made incredible efforts to erect this structure, thereby leaving a memory of themselves. It should be warned that the Kumakape gorge is considered a part of the Aktau-Buzachinsky reserve, however, the legal status of the reserve's borders is not visually defined in any way.
Geographic coordinates of the Kumakape gorge: N44 ° 27'03.42 "E51 ° 19'59.18"

Authority:
Andrey Astafyev, Aktau town and  Alexander Petrov.

Photos by
Alexander Petrov.