Day 6 - Gobi Desert

We are up early this morning for breakfast at 7am and are in the cars by 8am and heading west. We are on our way to the Sand Dunes. 

My first impressions of the Gobi are not at all what I had expected. I had expected sand everywhere and very little infrastructure and few inhabitants. Instead the landscape is barren and rocky with very little sand and there is power out to at least our Ger camp and as we move across the desert there are wells dug throughout and quite a few settlements. There is hardly any vegetation which of course is to be expected, the rain they just got is very welcome. 

There are herds of cattle, camels, sheep, goat and horses roaming freely. Most are branded or marked in some manner, but they aren’t super fat and they need to work hard for their meals, travelling very long miles. 

We stop at a few spots along the way, once to get a closer look at some of the horses where we discovered they had no water and our group worked to figure out the valve to get it turned on. Dave was the winner and the horses all beat the crap out of each other trying to get to the trough.  

After a couple of hours of crossing the open desert we entered a small valley for a short stretch and our driver Moggie with his eagle eyes spotted an Ibex up in the crags of the hills. It was a large male and the drivers and our guides were very excited about this siting as apparently the males are quite elusive. He was very impressive and his ridge horns were pretty spectacular. 

We could start to make out the sand dunes in the distance and we pulled into our Ger Camp, Gobi Erdene. This place is quite different from our last one, it has log cabins on one side and Gers on the other and a large log chalet as the dining hall. There are no washrooms in the gers, it’s going to be a long walk to the bathroom in the middle of the night!

We get settled into our gers and then have a nice lunch and some down time. We plan to head to sand dunes around 3pm but push it back a little due to the wind. The sand dunes are located in Gobi Gurvan Saikhan National Park and we pull up and prep to start a climb to the top. The wind is still blowing fiercely and we all check the temperature of the sand with our bare feet as we decide that will be the easiest way to get traction. 

We are off and it’s tough going. We have visited sand dunes before in Oregon, and its tough to climb sand any day of the week, however this is super steep, its hot, and the wind is blowing hard enough to take your breath away and whipping against our skin so hard it stings. 

Robert veers to the right and takes a ledge all the way to the top. We watch him climb 15-20 steps at a time as he nears the top and then stops to rest. It looks impossible. Cadence, Avery and me go up partway and grab a photo and then call that done. Brian, Erik, Dave and Fiona trek up further and I’m shocked at how far Fiona make it. What a trooper. She and Dave finally make their way back down, but Brian and Erik slowly persevere..they won’t be outdone by Robert!

We wait for them to all come back down and then head over to where our camels are patiently waiting. They are two hump camels and sort of cute in their own way. The camels are branded and pierced through the nose around age 2.  The piercing is a bone or something that is attached to a long cord which served as a rein. They are peculiar creatures and make very funny sounds. 

We all get assigned to certain camels and they get our feet in the stirrups and then they signal them to stand up which is a very weird sensation. They tie the camel behind to the back hump of the camel in front. Dave’s camel is so close to me that when we stop for the first time I was surprised to find his camels head in my lap! Thankfully he didn’t snot on me like Robert’s camel did to Fiona. Haha. Her poor leg. She was horrified. 

Thankfully the ride is relatively short as it is not comfortable to ride. They have a very narrow and sharp spine that is hard on the you know what! The wind is also still blowing incredibly hard and despite trying to keep it out of my eyes and mouth, it is relentless and I’ll be cleaning it out of my ears for days afterwards!

After about 30mins we arrive at the herders house and the camels are signalled to lay down again which you’d better sit back and hold on for!  We are then invited into his home for milk tea (slightly salted) and powdered tobacco (which you sort of snort) which he offered all of us but only some of us partook in…not me…but Dave’s eyes were sure watering!

The herder sat with us and we had a nice conversation with him about his livestock and how he feeds them through the winter etc. It was a very nice experience to be in an authentic home and to have a conversation with someone local. He was very engaged and Sara did all the translating for both of us. 

Our drivers pick us up and we head off to an oasis where the grass is green and lush amidst the desert around it. There are horses and cattle grazing and a spring with the coldest and freshest water coming out of the ground. Our drivers fill their water bottles from the spring…the rest of us aren’t as brave but I do wash my face in the cool water. 

After spending some time relaxing there, we head back to our camp. It’s time for a shower and dinner and then we sit around outside for awhile playing games. The wind has died down slightly this evening and I’m able to sit outside our ger and read for awhile.

It’s small moments like this that give me pause. Here I am, sitting outside a ger, watching the sun set and reading my book while looking out to the sand dunes in the Gobi Desert. I feel very lucky to get to experience this.