Flaming Cliffs

A few hours driving to Bayanzag aka The Flaming Cliffs with some Mongolian rap and Kazakh electro music was just the thing to lift the spirits after Ongi Khiid. The best bit was that the few hours was through the Gobi desert proper. I mean there was nothing to see over this flat land for miles and miles on miles over miles through miles in miles! It just went. There wasn't even a road (though Bimba somehow knew where he was going...swear his a bird).

Two things that shocked me was: firstly, the lack of sand - you'd think desert in a classical sense equals sand but nope not the case (to be revealed later); secondly, ho much life there was in this harsh place. It was bleak and wild and it was tough but everywhere I looked I could see life - birds flying high, gnarled bushes, twisted grass weed, wild gazelle, camels, goats. Bearing in mind that its probably -15C/-20C at this point with absolutely NO wind shelter from the biting cold it's astonishing that anything survives in this and then Bimba tells us that the gazelle actually migrate here during the winter...they voluntarily put themselves through this blitz environment rather than migrating north like all the people to find shelter. Couldn't believe it! Now the kicker is that even though Rach and I were crazy tourists coming in Winter and roaming the country when the locals were hunkered down from the cold we actually got to see sights that do not exist at any other time of the year. Driving through the Gobi in a 4x4, off roading, with packs all over the place of gazelles running with us is something that I will never forget. It was almost like a winter safari with the humans gone (all 10 of them) nature tool over. Condors, yaks, arctic foxes, some of the last of the wild goats, snow leopards (I wish...kind of), sights that those jelly balls in your head cannot behold if you were to visit The Land of the Blue Sky during any other time of year. It was truly magical to be a part of, stepping into their world just for a little peek, yep...magical.

I hadn't even realised we'd arrived as I thought we would have seen them rising out of the distance as we drove up to them...we had actually driven to the edge but with drive and surrounding area being so flat had registered that there was actually a drop until I stepped out into the biting wind to see an expanse beneath me. The Flaming Cliffs named for the red earth that it is comprised of - a known dinosaur graveyard. Yes an actual dinosaur graveyard, people have found dinosaur eggs whilst wandering the cliffs before so we kept our eyes open. Again the sheer vastness of the Gobi was just mind-blowing to see and try to comprehend. It's like the cliffs are a seam that teared and a shelf of the entire world just dropped and then continues on completely flat oblivious to its missing piece left standing watch behind it. To see and KNOW how much land there is and to KNOW that within 100 miles there might be 4 people is a very foreign concept to make sense of. The cliffs themselves were beautiful, the kind of formations that I imagine wouldn't be out of place in Arizona or Utah and of course in accordance with Asian health and safety standards the entire place was free to explore, no barriers, no warnings, nothing just a playground for geologists, outdoor enthusiasts, photographers, palaeontologists, geographers, wide-eyed wanderers and generally anyone ever! As you can imagine we left as very invigorated dinos :)Read more