Dream Hotel kindly store excess baggage and the trucks are loaded for our big adventure. 2 Russian Furgon trucks – one, driven by Turuu is carrying Jess and her amazing ‘office’…which is conveniently placed between the front seats and contains everything we manage to spread out in one room of our house!...Julie, Janine, Meaghan and Richard, while the other, driven by Sandag, has Graeme, Suzanne, John and Elaine on board. Depart UB, stopping on the outskirts of town for fuel, importantly for the vehicles, but also en route snacks for the passengers. Jess picks up bread for our lunch and off we go!!
It is raining steadily but that does nothing to quell
the excitement of the passengers, and
the air temperature is quite warm. Jess
tells us that we have brought the rain and are therefore blessed. We leave the tarmac and head south=east to
the Gobi desert. The rain continues and
the “roads” require very skilled driving to get us through some sticky
situations. We assume our vehicles are
operating in 4WD, but when Sandag’s vehicle finally slips just a bit too far,
he pops out and engages 4WD! A few
metres in reverse and away we go again across the rolling plains and into the
hills.
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| "Road" to the Gobi desert |
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| Two locals among the boulders |
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| Camp among the granite boulders |
There is heavy mist but the green of the Gobi is amazing. It has been the wettest season for many years but we can still pick out the blue, purple and yellow of wild flowers growing amongst the green. The herds are in great condition and sheep, goats and cattle graze happily, sometimes unattended, but often with small children on horseback keeping watch. It is school holidays and the whole family is occupied preparing for the winter.
Because of the heavy rain, we go to Plan B for lunch. Turuu makes a phone call and we are invited to use the house of an acquaintance of his for our lunch stop. The hospitality of Mongolian people is truly amazing. This family allows us – all 11 of us – to occupy their kitchen to prepare and eat our lunch while they –grandpa, mum, daughter and her small baby – adjourn to the living room to watch the Olympics on their flat screen TV!! Most homes, even the herders gers, have solar panels, satellite dishes and often generators to power the mod cons. Richard has very kindly organised a cake to celebrate my birthday…a 3-layer sponge with marshmallow ‘icing’ and a large marshmallow dog on the top! A candle is lit and blown out and“Happy Birthday” sung…I must be the luckiest person in the world to have now celebrated two birthdays in this wonderful country!! Jess repays our hosts with a small gift of cash for the baby…and we leave them with half the birthday cake.
John and I are amazed to find that the lake where we had lunch on our last trip is almost dry in spite of good spring rain. Another lake provides us with birdlife for the photographers to feast upon. The rain is now intermittent and we cross a dry plain before heading back into the green and sight the great boulders that are to be our shelter for the night at Baga Gazrlin Chuluu. The rain has cleared and we pitch Vango tents, roll out silver tent liner mats and closed foam sleeping mats before adding our own sleeping gear. This is an honour for us…we are the first camping tour of Jess’s company, “Eternal Landscapes” and get to christen the new gear. John digs the toilet pit, we collect firewood and Jess and the boys prepare dinner…Turuu cooks on the first night because he likes us to have traditional Mongolian noodles as our introduction to his country…and jess doesn’t do it properly!!
The cool breeze kicks in so we layer up to sit around our small fire. Having has a lunchtime birthday celebration, it is a surprise when Jess presents me with a small copper bowl and a sky blue haddaq (traditional scarf) while John has a bottle of Chinngis Gold vodka! Vodka is poured into the bowl and is handed around for all to share…another traditional celebration...before we head for bed.
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| Birthday cake |
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