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Bayan Dzaan Uula

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    • Our Trans-Mongolian Adventure
      111212
      Day 20

      Into the Gobi Desert

      September 14, 2019 in Mongolia ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

      It’s Friday morning and our alarm goes off at 3am (ouch!) for a 4am pick up to UB Airport for one of the highlights of our journey, a four day trip to the Gobi desert. We only have a small weight allowance for the flight so the bulk of our luggage will remain at our UB hotel for our return. Eggy is ready and waiting for us in the lobby and everything works well as after a good flight we arrive in bright sunshine at Dalanzadgad Airport, in the middle of the Gobi, on time at 7.50am. Our guide NK and driver Choijo are waiting at the airport, having driven 700 km yesterday from UB.

      Our accommodation throughout the four days will be in Gers which are the traditional homes of Mongolians and can be seen all across the country, even close to UB. Ours will be in Tourist Ger Camps which gives decent comfort whilst allowing you to stay in remote parts of the Gobi Desert. These Camps have around 20 Gers and two shared buildings, one a dining area and the other containing toilets and showers.

      Our first night will be in Camp 1 then we will travel in a loop through the Steppes and Mountainous areas staying at two other Camps before returning to Camp 1 on the last night before flying back to UB on Tuesday morning.

      We had a great cooked breakfast at Camp 1 before going through our itinerary with NK and then having a couple of hours sleep. After lunch we travelled about 40 minutes from the Camp to walk the Eagle Gorge. There are three tarmac roads on the Gobi but the majority of driving has to be done off road which is challenging but provides constant spectacular views.

      Photo’s cannot do justice to the scale of everything we will see here. This afternoon as we drove to Eagle Gorge there were shadowed mountains to our left and on the other side perfectly flat Steppe to the horizon, punctuated by occasional nomadic Ger (always white) and herds of various animals.

      We will run out of superlatives during these four days but the walk through the Gorge was fantastic. From the car park it begins about 80 metres wide but narrows down gradually until after about an hour it is just a few metres from side to side, before gradually opening up again. A stream runs through the Gorge and has to be negotiated via natural stepping stones and we kept dry. The narrowest point was tricky to negotiate but achieved and we walked a bit further past this point and then returned to the car after a well paced three hour walk.

      At the wider points of the Gorge we encountered several Yak herds, there were lots of gerbils running around (nest building for winter) and plenty of horses. We also saw a number of Golden Eagles (hence the name of the Gorge) and also Bearded Vultures, Mongolia’s biggest bird with a wingspan of over 9 feet.

      We had a bizarre incident as we wandered through the Gorge. There were occasional hikers, but then we happened upon three Mongolian men one of who was staggering around. It quickly became apparent that he was completely drunk and extremely aggressive. One of his friends was trying to hold him back and the other one looked drunk but stayed in the background. The very drunk one approached NK, slurred some kind of insult and looked like he was going to take a swing at him, but his mate caught him in time. We had some concern but managed to divert past them and continued to the Gorge, whilst the drunkards walked towards the Car Park. Our driver later told us that he saw these people pick an argument with the local horse trek guides who gave them all a good thumping. That was good news!

      Despite this minor blip we had had a memorable walk in the Gorge in the most perfect weather. It was a totally blue sky. Warm in the sun but very chilly when in the Gorge in the shade of the surrounding mountains.

      Although we have already been to locations with big annual temperature swings, nothing matches the Gobi. Summer maximum can hit +50C and just to give it some symmetry the winter temperature can fall to -50C. Quite incredible.

      We drove back to our Camp across the Steppe with the sun going down and arrived back just as the full harvest moon was rising above the horizon.

      We enjoyed a hot shower, dinner (delicious spaghetti bolognese - something we weren’t expecting in the Gobi!), a beer and an early night. Janet had noticed a small mouse in our Ger (not really a surprise in our location) when we were getting ready for dinner so we mentioned it to our guide. We were presented with a solution which was a ‘sticky mouse trap’ to put under the bed which would glue the poor mouse’s feet to a glue pad when it ran over it. We decided we could not be that nasty - and didn’t mind sharing our accommodation - so we abstained from using this primitive execution equipment! We only saw the little thing once more before bed time and we think it slept as well as us.      Read more

    • Our Trans-Mongolian Adventure
      1
      Day 21

      Day 2 in the Gobi

      September 15, 2019 in Mongolia ⋅ ☀️ 10 °C

      It’s Saturday so day two in the Gobi and we spent the morning driving from Camp 1 to Camp 2 across the Steppe. Now many people think that the Gobi is a desert of all sand, like the Sahara, however the Gobi is a mixture of sand, grass Steppe and mountains, the latter two of which provide us with the backdrop to this mornings drive.

      The whole three hour journey is off road on gravel or dried mud tracks and we come across herds of goats, a large herd of horses running across us and some more horses being herded by motorcycle (which happens often here). We also saw our first camels, with the local variety being Bactrian’s which have two humps. All of these animals roam freely although they are all owned by somebody, somewhere and will be branded or marked in some unique way. Dwellings are at a minimum this morning with once again occasional nomadic Gers dotting the landscape.

      Our most interesting find today was a remote watering station pumped by a generator where a herdsman was watering his horses. NK spoke to the herdsman and he has three horse herds which exist as separate units each under the control of one Stallion. We watched as the three large groups took it in turn to water, with one group moving in to the trough immediately one group withdrew. The Stallions do not get on and there were a couple of brief sparring sessions whilst the watering process took place.

      We arrived at Camp 2 around 1pm and as it was 4 hours since breakfast (the maximum time allowed between meals apparently) they presented us with a huge lunch of salad starters and a full Chinese meal for main. This Camp is similar to the last in layout but more remote and we look across the Steppe to the horizon on all four sides. Our Ger is also much the same as previous. The weather is again blue sky and sun but it is very, very windy and by the time we reach Camp quite difficult to walk against. The animals and people here have a tough life.

      We always eat at a table for four with NK and Choijo, with the former having an appetite beyond what we’ve ever seen before. He eats things in an interesting order too, e.g. breakfast can be bread and jam, followed by a cream cake, then bacon, sausage and egg with a milk and cereal completion. At some point in each meal he advises us that he is so full he can’t possibly eat any more, then 5 minutes later is piling up his plate again. This process is repeated until every plate on the table is empty. He then disappears to have a few cigarettes.

      This afternoon we head to two locations near to our Ger Camp. The first was a forest, something extremely rare in the Gobi. Although it is called a forest the unique Saxaul trees are actually only about six feet in maximum height but they have roots that go 20 yards under the ground to the water level. This is the biggest collection of trees in the Gobi at 5 x 1 miles in size.

      Straight after this we head to the Flaming Cliffs which are a dramatic collection of sand/rock formations which are famous for reflecting the setting sun. We have to spend around 30 minutes walking over a narrow ridge across the top of the cliffs to get the best sight lines of the spectacular vista. At points this is quite precarious, particularly due to the gale force wind blowing that hits us whenever we reached points that don’t have any cover. Definitely a ‘bum twitcher’ at times due to the sheer drop on one side. Health & Safety would never have allowed this walk back home.

      This site is famous for one of the World’s most important discoveries of dinosaur bones, eggs and fossils by the American explorer Roy Chapman Andrews firstly in 1922 with further discoveries in subsequent years.

      The views were memorable but we were glad to return to lower terrain and then Camp 2 for sunset, moonrise, dinner and bed. It’s been a good day.      Read more

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    Bayan Dzaan Uula, Q27704988

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