The Gobi Desert

 Sunday, July 21

The Gobi Desert

At breakfast this morning, there was a large pot of soup with a label in English: 

Despite being in soup, the meat was dry, almost crumbly, and devoid of any flavor.  We set out to go to a Soum Center where we could buy gasoline, and arrived: 

We discovered that there was no electricity, and therefore, no way to pump gasoline.  We wandered the tiny village, and waited, and after a few hours a generator was hooked up to the gas station, and we were able to fuel up.  We went on, and stopped at a tourist restaurant at another Soum Center for lunch, which was goat barbeque.

The flat food above the goat in the photo was a sort of slimy bread-like thing.  We were behind schedule, and continued our journey to the sand dunes of Khongoryn Els, known as the “Singing Sands.”  On the way we passed some ibex:


 We eventually arrived at the Gobi Anar Ger Lodge: 

As usual, the toilets and showers were in a separate fixed building:

We went to the sand dunes in the very late afternoon, coming across a herd of camels on the way: 


The dunes were very impressive, and we hiked up them, some of us going all the way to the top with sleds:


 And, of course, came down: 

After dinner we had an hysterical game of charades, with the answers limited to animals.  Here’s Leah being a minnow:

 

Tomorrow we’re off to the Gurvan Saikhan National Park.  More then!

Comments

  1. I'm slowly catching up with your last adventure! So many contrasts in Mongolia-plastic wrapped gers, sledding on sand dunes, gas powered generator to pump gas (what happens if the gen runs out of gas?). Still, all very interesting!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Naadam Festival

Return to Ulaanbaatar, a Concert, and the Flight Home