Luckily we did manage to find 3 gers during the 8 hour driving day who could give us some directions - at the first ger we stopped at the owners even drew Bimba a map, which to us consisted of random lines and distances!! At this ger we also got to try camel milk tea for the first time - and Adam, Franco and Sylvie tried camel milk airag which was even more sour and creamier than the usual airag. However the excitement of this wore off for Adam and Franco as it left their tummies in not the best state for a few hours afterwards!
One enjoyable part of the stop at this ger was the family itself. Mongolian people really enjoy having their photos taken and looking at the pictures on the screen - and this family was no different. Even grandma got a thrill out of having her picture taken, and the little girl followed Adam around to get as many photos taken as possible. Mum was so proud of her kids, that she removed hats, combed hair, and positioned the kids in the best places before the clicking could begin.
For lunch we managed to find the hottest place possible, where the temperature soared past 40 degrees - and had us begging to be on the road again where the breeze from the window cooled us down a little bit. As we were being chased by a huge sandstorm, we saw white-tailed gazelles also racing around from the sandstorm at lightning speed.
Another place we stopped at for directions was a camel herding family and were in the process of setting up the skeleton of what would become a white ger speck in the Gobi Desert.
We experienced the simple joy of cold water in the middle of the desert when we came across a well and we splashed water on our faces, which revived us and gave us the energy to cope with the last hour it took us to get to Khongoryn Els - the biggest sand dunes in Mongolia. Here a family cleaned out a ger for us, but left a huge bag of fermenting camel milk - which made it difficult for poor Sylvie to sleep with her head closest to the sour smell.
Today was also the day we finally utilised the padded ceiling of our 4wheel drive van - during one of the 100 million bumps we've taken on the journey, one today finally sent us flying into the roof. We're sure this brought Bimba some joy, as throughout the whole trip he has been constantly turning around to see if we were scared - it seems like he spends more time looking at us or Chana that the actual 'road'. His glances are always met with smiling faces and thumbs up though! One time we all screamed and pretended to be scared, which gave Chana and Bimba one heck of a fright!!! Today Bimba's eyes were often focused on the hand drawn map he had been given.
Adlibing the desert.
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