The Gobi

The drive to the Gobi desert was spectacular and the scenery changed every couple of hours so there was no chance to get board of the long drive. As we headed out of the city it was manly green and the mountains were still snow capped from the storm of the last few days. It was beautiful and strange to see camels wandering around in snow. We also saw lots of other animals huge herds of gazelles, eagles, other birds of pray, horses and mice. Most impressive though was when we saw a horse carcass on the ground being devoured by a group of about 20 vultures. They were incredibly big there wing span was well over 2 meters, impressive in every way.

As the drive continued the scenery flattened out and became much more desert like, i have no idea how the driverfinds his way as there are no mountains or streams to follow and every direction is miles and miles of more flat ground. After three days we arrived at Yolin Am, a cluster of mountains and a gorge which seem strange among so much flat, it was great to stretch our legs and climb them even if we were racing the sun to get down! The next day we carried on to see the 'flaming cliffs' and eventually arrived at Khongor sand dunes.

The sand dunes are about 200 meters high and we climbed them, it was really hard work and toward the top we were resting every 10 steps or so. It was boiling and the sand was so soft it just moved from under you and you felt as if you were going nowhere. When we got to the top the views were spectacular you could see so so far it was beautiful. The we got to run down!!! we got sand everywhere but it was well worth it, you could just run and dive without getting hurt - needless to say it was a lot quicker getting down than it was getting up. As we ran down the dunes 'sang'. The movement in the sand caused a loud humming noise which was pretty cool.

Once we were at the bottom we jumped on camels and rode back to our ger where we cooked and kept warm by burning camel shit as there is no wood!