After a few day trip in the Gobi desert we are now taking the direction of the Altai (mountainous northwestern corner of Mongolia). We just drove about 600km on a quite rough dirt road (Mongolian highway A 303) and finally reached Altai city today where we hope to find washing machines for our laundry, fill up our gas tank, bottles of drinking water, food and an Internet connection.
To start by the beginning, on our way south to the Gobi we first crossed a beautiful little national park called Ikh Gazaryn Chuluu where an high rocky formation stick out in the middle of a desert and forms some sort of a labyrinth of small valleys and cliffs. This was a great place for birding and Eagles, vultures, owls and particular passerines were seen (I’ll make a list later for the birdwatchers). Another two days were necessary to reach the Gobi desert and the beautiful Yolyn Am area where we hiked in super narrow gorges surrounded by Alpine prairies and mountains contrasting with the desert all around. Further south we crossed the Dungany Am gorge with the car. It is an amazing place where the track follows a small river that forms narrow gorges. The track is beautiful and Charlie (an English man that we met in UB) warned us about the difficulty to reach this place and to pass it. His words were: “yeah, it gets narrower and narrower and you might have to bend your rear view mirrors at some places if you want to make it through. There is no turn around and you just have to keep the faith. If you do it then you can say that you are a member of the 4WD family!”. Well, the gorges were not so difficult after all but the steepness of the track (that makes your car go dangerously sideways in many places) and all the rocks that we had to pass to reach it probably allow us to feel not so much as beginners anymore.
On the other side of Dungany Am we drove through a long, flat and rocky valley that leads to where you can find the rare parts of sandy landscape and dunes of the Gobi desert.
It was beautiful, very hot, very dusty and the track was also quite bad. On our way back north (between Bogd and Bayanhongor) we had the chance to find a track that is not even written on most maps but on which you cross a incredible variety of types of desert surrounded by majestic peaks and mountains in the distance.
This was our rather short Gobi experience and we are rushing a bit to reach the Altai region in order to enjoy it as much as possible before the end of our Mongolian Visa.
We hope that everything is going well for you where ever you are and we send you our best regards from this beautiful country!
PS: Geert, the Richo and the kite are doing good, thanks a lot again for this. We finally found the good moment to use them and the result is really great!
PS2: What’s happening in the world in this moment?
Don’t hesitate to let us know what’s up on your side, we also like to have news from friends, home etc… Cheers!
