Sept. 26- We awoke a little late, since both Jason & Bam's wristwatch alarms were nestled deep in their sleeping bags. But we were still up before dawn, & after a little hot tea and using the facilities, we were ready to hit the road. As opposed to the jurlong/outhouse we described earlier, the facilities here were literally outside, wherever you wanted to go. We had some tea and Bambulai partaked of some leftover dumplings (ummm...we weren't hungry yet...) and canned sardines (wo! we were really not hungry yet!), and we all had some fresh bread. J3 actually tried the snuff when it was offered by Batamunk's other son, Anogin. We also met Anogin's wife, Tdoughya. After a photo-op with the entire fam, Bam & J3 (making sure to get the motorcycle in the photos), as well as swapping addresses, we were off for day 2!
After passing thru a village called Govi Ugtaal, we arrived at Ukh Gazryn Chelo, which is an area of reddish rocks jutting out of the ground. We then stop in another tiny village called Guryansayhan, where Bambulai hunted for a lunch spot. After at least 30 minutes of driving and stopping to inquire about food, it was apparent that there really weren't any eateries open, and we guessed everyone just ate at home most of the time. Bam met some girls, asked them some questions, drove them around with us for a while, and soon we were in their ger home, where they began making lunch. We had stopped at what seemed to be a ger corner store for veggies, and stopped at another ger (probably mom's house) to grab a glass of milk, and we had our missing ingredients.
Lunch was similar to last night's meal, but more of a soupy stew with cabbage, carrots, potato, thin strips of dough, mutton, & fat chunks. It was pretty tasty but the mutton scent still hit a nerve. We again watched the entire cooking process from the left side of the ger while drinking tea & eating snacks. There were about 5 young ladies around lunch time, and we brought out some balloons and played with the two kids while watching their TV a bit. Although we had a good time, we couldn't stay long after lunch since this lunch scavenger hunt lasted at least 2hrs. We tried to counter the mutton taste in our mouth by downing some oreos in the jeep. It worked for about 10 seconds.
After getting a little lost once or twice (even Lufzan has a hard time making a straight shot to destinations because of the fact that there are no roads, just paths in the sandy dirt made by cars & bikes), the next stop was caves at Khentee Bosoogi U Agui, where Jason & Bam got quite dirty climbing around. Bam forgot to mention we needed a flashlight! No worries, JJ would be able to get help if necessary...oops, no ger for hours...maybe not! Afterwards, JJ tried the jeep out a bit (shhh!) and it took at least an hour or two to realize we couldn't find one ger! We were really in the middle of nowhere. So we decided to camp since it was almost sunset. No problem, since the sky was amazing as usual and we got to enjoy Bam's cooking (rice & mutton soup) with some red wine, use the camping gear & wear the traditionial Mongolian coats which Bam had brought for us, full length and super warm.
Sept. 27- After brekky and packing up, we drove thru the morning and arrived at Dalanzagad, the the largest city/town in southern Mongolia, around lunchtime. DZ is described in Lonely Planet (LP) as a "soulless and windy" town. It has a similar feel to UB except much smaller- delapidated concrete buildings, none more than 3 or 4 stories tall, 2 or 3 paved roads. With this forewarning and after seeing a few tumbleweeds sweep past, we suddenly imagined Clint Eastwood riding up on his horse, telling someone, "Dyin' ain't much of a livin', boy," or one of his other famous spaghetti western lines. One thing we did notice was the uniforms the kids were wearing- boys wore suits/ties & girls wore a uni that reminded us of chambermaids (black dresses w/collar & aprons).
We ate lunch at a cafe/restaurant in the middle of town next to the open air market with about 6 stalls selling clothing, tools, and anything else you could need in the desert. Lunch consisted of more mutton pastry similar to dumplings, and veggie/mutton soup. It was obvious by now that ordering cow or pig or chicken was just not worth it...even if we could pronounce the word correctly or get the phrasebook out in time to show them, the standard answer was always, "No, but we have mutton," in Mongolian.
Lufzan called during lunch and told us he couldn't make it today due to aircraft issues ("the machines are broken". It turns out that the ONE domestic airplane used by Mongolian Airlines was on the fritz and needed some repairs. Our immediate response was, of course, to inquire about our flight back to UB in a few days! Fortunately, Lufzan would work that out by using another domestic airline that is apparently more reliable, if that counts for anything.
After lunch, we continued on a few hours drive south to visit Golden Eagle Valley and Yolyn Am, which means the vulture's mouth in Mongolian. We parked & hiked through the valley, weaving our way back & forth across the stream flowing thru it, and keeping on the lookout for mountain goats & other animals. We saw one group of mountain goats, high-flying birds (probably vultures) & lots of little rodents who would run & jump into their holes when they saw us. The stream was not frozen, something you cannot say for more than half the year here. Aside from one local selling small wood & rock carvings & making sure his dog didn't attack us, we only saw 8 other people. <<Note to self, always go to popular places in low tourist season (in this case, we did the trek on the very last few days of tourist season.>> What a beautiful valley, and it was practically all ours!
At the exit, we stoppped off in the souvenir shop. The souvenir shop was empty except for the local manning it, and we bought one of our favorite souvenirs, a camelhair tapestry depicting...you guessed it- CAMELS! It was the equivalent of $2, but, of course, we played hardball & bargained him down to about $1.73....
All hiked out & ready to rest, we headed back to DZ for our one night in a Mongolian hotel...one we would never forget...
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