Team Mongolia takes on the Gobi

After the horse trekking trip, Team Mongolia returned to UB to shower (hot this time - woohooo!), do laundry, and eat some good food. (Have I mentioned fermented mare's milk and cheese curds? Actually, by the third time I drank the mare's milk I kind of started to like it, and we did have some excellent homemade yoghurt in one of the yurts.) In general Mongolian food wasn't that good, but restaruants in UB offered a few decent options such as mutton kebabs. Half of the team also left the country at that point; we saw Pete off at Genghis Khan International Airport (I'm not making that name up!), and later that day brought Team China to the UB train station for their train/bus/train trip back to Wuhan.

The next morning Eric, Glynnis and I were off with a driver and a guide for a six-day tour of the Gobi Desert. Little did we know that most of those six days would be spent bouncing around on bone-jarring "roads" in a rugged Russian jeep. Jaghka, our driver, should probably be given an honorary spot on the team for a) his impressive driving skills and b) doubling as a mechanic. If he hadn't been able to replace ball bearings and flat tires, or to tape battery wires and do all sorts of other mysterious tinkering under the hood, we'd probably still be in the Gobi.

The Gobi is not your prototypical desert; there is some sand, but the landscape varies a lot and some parts of it are actually quite full of life. The first night we set up our tents in a vast area of low scrubby ground cover under one of the biggest skies I've ever seen; Mongolia has got to be nearly unrivaled as a place for star gazing. The second night we camped in a desert "forest" of shrubs; we spent night three at the base of some massive sand dunes, night four near an impressive canyon, and the final night on what looked like a rocky moon-scape.

Although we spent lots of time in the jeep, we also got to scamper around on the rocks, ride camels (albeit a rather lame ride), climb giant sand dunes, hike in a canyon, and lick dinosaur fossils. The licking is a test of authenticity: supposedly your tongue will stick if it's a fossil and not just an ordinary rock. My tongue did stick, and we were in the part of the Gobi where the American explorer Roy Chapman Andrews discovered dinosaur fossils in the 1920s - but I'm still a bit skeptical about the true nature of what my tongue was touching. We also saw some great wildlife including falcons and giant vultures, a fox, and a couple of snakes - and best of all had an extended sighting of three ibex. (Three what, you say? I didn't know what an ibex was either until this trip; I'll put some pictures up soon.)

We were a bit stir-crazy after all that time in the jeep, but it did give us a real appreciation for how vast and desolate the Gobi is. A quote from our guidebook took on new meaning out there in the desert; it went something like, "Only a fool crosses the Gobi without serious misgivings." Or without plenty of water and a talented driver/mechanic!