15 days of exploring a small offering of what Mongolia has to offer: 15 days of open countryside, mountains, desert and more: 15 days of camping, cooking, no running water and digging holes for bodily functions: 15 days of adventure awaited the 4 of us – Shona and I plus Simon and Edwina our new travel buddies.
Days 1-5
Leaving the pot-holed roads of UB behind we soon hit the dirt tracks and vague paths out across the Mongolian wilderness, these were to be our way through the steppe and constant battle – Bone shakingly bumpy they restricted any normal driver to around 40kmph, however we soon realised in Butsanaa, or ‘Dave the white van driver’ that we soon nicknamed him, that he would try his best to make at least 50kmph – his 30 year old very cool old Russian 4×4 van takes a real pounding but some how keeps going. The vast expanse of the country is soon laid out in front of us, miles and miles of nothing for as far as the eye can see… how can so much nothing be so stunning!! Eagles and buzzards sit on the road side flying off as the van tears towards them, herds of goats and sheep scatter the landscape, wild camels and horses wander the terrain: We spend our days covering lots of ground in the van, trekking when possible, riding camels, drinking strange milk offered by local nomad families, eating sour cheese and picking our way round mutton (well some of us do!) in noodle dishes passed round to everyone in the random Gers we stopped at. We camp in a mountain pass alongside wierd rock formations, set up our tents in a gorge by a small stream, spend the night in a Ger perched high in the steppe and then spend 2 nights in another family Ger by the edge of the sand dunes in the Gobi desert (see next entry!). I am writing this now with a view out of the Ger door of camels relaxing in the sun and the vast sand dunes whilst we escape the midday sun…..anyway time to go dig a hole if you know what I mean!
Desert storm
On our final night in the Gobi we decide to go and climb some of the bigger dunes, well calling them dunes is a slight mis-justice to them, they are bloody huge at around 350m high! We slowly climb to the top, negociating our way up stupidly steep sections, but once at the top the views are stunning. We sat and watched the ever changing shadows across the dunes as the sun set. In the distance you could see a yellow haze taking up the whole horizon, we didn’t really pay much thought to it as the fun prospect of jumping, sliding and rolling our way back to the bottom seemed much more important. Once at the bottom though we quickly twigged it was a sand storm and that it was approaching us very quickly – problem was Dave had bugged off from where he’d dropped us to drink vodka with his mates at one of the nearby Gers and was nowhere to be seen! We decided it was best to walk back up the track we’d driven down as we’d remembered seeing a few Gers not too far away. The wind was starting to pick up and the huge blanket of yellow cloud now seemed only minutes away but thankfully we could see some Gers, we quickly walked the final few hundreds meters up to them and got there just in time. Sand started to swill around us and the wind was now battering anything in-sight. We knocked on one of the Ger doors and signalled to the person who answered could we come in, she pointed to the 2nd Ger and we quickly ran in there to escape the storm just in the nick of time. Dave finally realised he’d left us up a sand dune in a sand storm and came looking for us, driving past the nearby Gers bibbing his horn which we didn’t hear but thankfully Simon just happen to look out side at the right moment as he drove off, he then bravely/stupidly ran out into the storm to flag him down – Dave looked a little embarrassed and coy but hey it was good fun.
Chris and Terry
photo’s please