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Other entries in Gobi Desert

Gobi Desert

Our jeep tour then takes us South into the Gobi Desert. We spend a night at the Gobi sand dunes, 200km long and between 5 and 30km wide. Here we try our hand at Camel riding for a few hours of a lazy morning, very fun, the Gobi camels are the ones with two humps and we sit between them, they trot downhill so you have to hold on to their first hump very hard. They lift you very high and the first bit when they get off their knees is a shock! As expected they smelt, Sophie had the lazy camel again but at least she didn't fall off!

 That afternoon we climbed the very highest sand dune, very exhausting, but very worth it to watch the sunset in solitude over a neighbouring mountain range. We also had views over the entire region, the ger camp we were staying at was great, even had a shower block, but it wasn't working... The owner kindly gave us more milk tea and dried yogurt, to which we had started to pretend to eat and put in our pockets rather than stomach it...

 The next day we head out to 'Ice Valley'. We have to pass through some very steep desert gorges, some points very narrow and steep, so steep we have to walk down! We see black and white condors and I am pleased to say it was me who spotted the Wild Goats (Ibex) first! We stop for lunch before trekking down the Ice Valley with our guide, very cold with very sheer sides so the light never reaches its depths, their was loads of ice, some so thick it could take our weight.

Soph: After staying in a Mongolian apartment block that night and enjoying the luxuries of central heating and running water, we set off to see the Flaming Cliffs in Bayanzac. American explorers in the 1920's had found a whole host of different dinosaur skeletons and eggs in the red mud cliffs, and are guide joked that every round rock we found was a dinosaur egg! They were very impressive especially as we could see a huge snow storm in the distance coming our way! Instead of our original crazy plan to sleep in tents that night, we stayed with another of the driver's friends. I made friends with a cheerful dirty-faced Mongolian girl of about four years old, and had endless games of peekaboo and chase.

That evening I had my first taste of meat for the first time in three and a half years, and it was mutton! It just tasted chewy and fatty, but thankfully my body was able to stomach the small pieces. Monglians would think that it may have been helped by the amount of Chinngis Vodka we all drank that evening... (They seriously drink it if they have a tummy upset!)

We woke to find a deep settling of snow everywhere which made the next eight hour drive enjoyable. The sight of camels in the snow will stay with me for a long time. We then stayed in our last ger with a very sociable Mongolian lady who dressed Kerry and I up in her beautiful dells and wanted us to take photos of her and us. One of the many things I loved being able to watch the sunset in one direction and in the morning see the sunrise, as the landscape is so flat. The stars are incredible too.

The Mongolian lady accompanied us to Ulaan Baatar as she was making the eight hour journey to the doctor in the hospital. We stopped early for lunch to find that the cute sheep outside the cafe in fact was our lunch! It was killed quickly and carried in to the kitchen and an hour later it was in our fried noodles.  I ate it happily thinking this is how it should be, the sheep having an enjoyable free life on the steppes only to be killed when the need is there and there being no waste. Mongolians seem to use every part of the animal, we found this out after playing a game of 'knuckle bones' with as the name suggests a heap load of sheep/goat knuckle bones (some with hair still attached!) and flicking them at other knucklebones which landed the same way up.

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