Trip to the Gobi Desert.

5/4/2015

“New experiences are the reason we live. They are the reason we get up every day, the reason we carry on. While we enjoy comfort, we crave experience. The point of living is not to resign yourself to one part of life, but to continually redefine yourself. It’s to baptize yourself, over and over again, in new waters and new experiences.” - RPCV

A lot has happened since the last time I update my blog. Late April, I went to the Gobi Desert.

It was an amazing trip with 4 of my closest friends here. Our first stop was to visit two PC volunteers who live there, we all got dinner and hung out in their gers for the night. We woke up early the following morning, to hop into a big SUV and start our Gobi Adventure. The first day, we drove to the eternally frozen river. On our way there we stopped at the driver’s parents’ home for lunch. They were adorable and showed us around their land. There was a whole litter of puppies who had just been born, and surprisingly the mama dog had no issues with us picking up the babies and snuggling them. After our cuddle fest with the puppies we went back into their home to do the customary three shots of vodka, snuff and eat soup. I was happy to see that our driver did not do all three shots before heading out. 

The eternally frozen river was amazing. Here we are in the Gobi Desert, although still chilly because it is April, and there is a giant frozen river. We walked down the river on the ice for a couple hours. The huge rock mountains surrounded us and made the river even more mesmerizing to look at. You could hear the water running beneath us. The ice had formed a pocket over the water, so it appeared as though it was all frozen, but it was not. There were a few feet of frozen water on top of running water. When you looked into the ice you could see that water rushing underneath. It was so neat. After taking numerous pictures, including posing with a giant dead yak, we headed back to the car to go to the next site. 

As we drove, we passed herds of camels and even passed wild long horn sheep and gazelles! It was so cool! A few hours later we arrived at the ger we were going to be staying at. We decided to rent out a ger from a nomadic family instead of staying at a tourist ger camp. The family was so accommodating and cooked us dinner and provided us with tea in the morning. We all ventured out to explore the desert around us for a few hours and then hopped back into the car to go to the Flaming Cliffs. The Flaming Cliffs are like a miniature Grand Canyon made out of red packed sand. We hiked to the top of them and were amazed by the view of the other cliffs and the miles and miles of desert beneath us. Once the sun began to set, we went back down the cliffs to watch the sun set on the cliffs. This is where they get their name from. As the sun sets, the cliffs begin to glow and become a deep red-orange color. It was like nothing I have ever seen before. We then went back to our ger. When we got back we realized the family we were staying with were camel herders!! There were at least 25 camels in front of our ger. We walked around taking pictures with and petting the camels. The baby camels were adorable.

After sleeping in the cold ger that night, we woke up early once again and drove 5 hours (off roading) to the sand dunes! The sand dunes were gigantic! There was the most gorgeous view was we drove along the dunes. There were these huge gigantic sand dunes, behind them giant snowcapped rock mountains! The contrast was insane. We drove to the tallest dune and began the treacherous hike up it. As step you took, the sand moved and caused you to go back a few steps. It was so steep. My friend Laura and I came up with a plan. We would take 15 steps up the dune and then break for a couple minutes. It was like the hardest stair master workout in the world. Our legs were burning and at times the sand created like a mini avalanche that would cause us to go backwards or not move at all. We would take step after step and still be in the same place. It was hilarious and hard. We also tried the tactic of crawling up the dune on all fours. This did not last long, but did give our legs a break. We finally made it to the top and once again we were hit with the beauty of Mongolia. Miles and miles of tall sand dunes. I am used to the beauty of the mountains and rivers in Mongolia, this was the first time I was seeing the Gobi desert and all its beauty. And my god was it gorgeous. We stayed at the top chatting with all the other volunteers who made it to the top. Our conversation: how would Peace Corps rescue us if we fell off the other side. We were sitting precariously on the tip of the dune. Just enough for our butts to sit while I feet hung off the other side. One bad move and we would be sent down the other side. It took us a few hours to get up, and I don’t think our legs could do it again. We wondered if they would have to helicopter us out, because surely a jeep could not drive up and the sand. We decided not to find out and to go back down to the car. This was the fun part. We slid, surfed and ran down the dunes, with small avalanches of sand rushing down behind us. It was SO much fun. We made it to the car, sweaty and covered in sand. We all could not wait to take a baby wipe shower. The entire trip we had no way of bathing, so we relied on wiping our bodies down with baby wipes each night. 

We headed back to our friend’s ger once again, sunburned and exhausted. We stopped many times on the road to take pictures and to stretch our legs. Once we got back into town, we went back to our friend’s ger and low and behold, he had prepared camel meat burritos for us! They were delicious! We ate the burritos and reminisced about the 4 amazing days we spent trekking through the Gobi Desert. What an amazing trip it was!