Bozzhira is a canyon on the Ustyurt Plateau escarpment, with chalk outliers up to 250 metres tall. The area once lay on the floor of the Tethys Ocean — fossilised shells and shark teeth still turn up among its limestone cliffs.
Bozzhira is a canyon system on the chink — the sheer escarpment edge — of the Ustyurt Plateau in the Mangystau region. Its outliers rise up to 250 metres: chalk-white "fangs" and ridges carved by wind and water into a landscape with no real equivalent elsewhere, cast almost entirely in pale, luminous tones.
The cliffs of Bozzhira are built from limestone deposits shaped into strange, almost sculptural forms — ornamental ridges over 200 metres high run along the plateau's edge for many kilometres.
Millions of years ago this land lay on the floor of the Mesozoic Tethys Ocean. Traces of that era still surface among the stones today — fossilised shells and the teeth of prehistoric sharks.
Honest numbers before you take the wheel. We are not selling an adventure — we are explaining what you would be dealing with.
The descent to the lower viewpoint requires 4x4. Summer temperatures reach +45 °C with no mobile coverage — a breakdown far from the road is life-threatening.
Best light:Sunset from the upper viewpoint, sunrise from the lower one
Shots from our trips — click to enlarge
Leave the logistics to people who drive here all year round: prepared vehicles, satellite communication and a guide who knows where the ground holds and where it does not.
Ybykty-Sai → Karaman-Ata → Kyzylkup and 3 more stops
The Karagiye Depression → Tousled Canyon → Tuzbair and 2 more stops
The Karagiye Depression → The Senek Sands → Onere Spring and 4 more stops