Mongolia, Mongolia

We awoke this morning after a great first night in our Ger. We were comfortably warm during the night with our stove and wool and down blankets. This morning after breakfast we hopped into Land Rovers to go to the Sand Dunes. We were taking photos and enjoying the scenery when a group of the 2 humped camels magically appeared from behind a sand dune. It was time for us to hop on and go camel riding. It was so much fun. The camels are starting to shed their winter coats so they look a little raggedy. Very soon they’ll be “bald” for the hot summer months. The Nomadic Mama who helped me up on my camel, pulled off a tuft of loose fur from my camel and proceeded to use her teeth to turn the wad of fur into a yarn strand and made me a braid to take home. Nothing goes to the waste in the desert. They use the yarn they make from the camel fur to make braided rope for the camel reins and to tie things within their Ger. Nomadic Mongolians are very resourceful. Theirs is a very rugged life and the average life expectancy in Mongolia is 60-65 years of age. Little children from the Nomadic families nearby were selling their local handicrafts so we bought some replicas of our camels and a checker board set with Ger and camel pieces. So cute. Next we drove across the desert to visit a Nomadic family. Their compound consists of 3 gers for the family of 5. Their 3 little girls are adorable. They invited us all into one of their gers and served us camel milk and biscuits. Camel milk looks and tastes a bit like runny sour yogurt.     We then drove further across the desert to visit the fossil quarries of Bayanzag, also known as the Flaming Cliffs. There we hunted for dinosaur fossils with a local paleontologist.  The red sandstone monolith is home to relics ranging from the age of the dinosaurs to early humanity.   We also stopped to view the ochre-red sand dunes of Molts Els along the way. We returned to the lodge for a delicious lunch. Then we were off in the land rovers again for a 20 minute drive through the desert to attend a Nadaam Festival hosted especially for us. There were 3 elimination rounds of traditional Mongolian wrestling, archery and horse racing in addition to musical entertainment. The horse riders were children who ranged in ages from 4-12 and raced 5 miles. Mongolian children start riding horses and camels at a very young age. At cocktails and dinner tonight, we were entertained by a local children’s performance group. They were so adorable. There were a few musical numbers and then several dances. Probably the cutest ones were the little boys and girls doing the Camel Dance and then modern day ballroom dances. We’ve had a marvelous time here in the Gobi even though it’s been very windy and cloudy. Sadly the overcast skies prevented us from enjoying any stargazing and our sunset trip to the Cliffs had to be canceled. The owner of the lodge is a genuinely wonderful host and we’ve enjoyed spending time with him. He is committed to maintaining an Eco lodge environment and providing employment to the Mongolian people in addition to making the Gobi experience memorable for those who travel here. Kind of a hoot that he’s Mongolian by way of New Jersey! We’re extremely thankful that we did not get any rain today which had been forecast. We have to check out early in the AM for a long travel day to get to Myanmar. BAYANZAG Bayanzag, which means ‘rich in saxaul shrubs’, is more commonly known as the ‘Flaming Cliffs’, a name penned by the palaeontologist Roy Chapman Andrews. First excavated in 1922, it is renowned worldwide for the number of dinosaur bones and eggs found in the area, which you can see in museums around the world. Even if you are not a ‘dinophile’, the eerie beauty of the surrounding landscape is amazing. It’s a classic desert of rock, red sands, scrub, sun and awesome emptiness.