Day 2 – Drive to “White
Mountain” Red rocks
The next morning we were
off for another haul across the steppe. The landscape out the
windows was constantly changing.
Table-flat at times and rolling and
bumpy at others, I took some video inside the car to try and capture
the experience, but it doesn't really come out. Nobody was ill (the
whole trip, actually) but there were definitely times that Susan and
I were eating a few extra peanuts (peanuts settle your stomache which
is why they traditionally serve them aboard airplanes). But mostly
flat – which was why we were all so surprised to suddenly find
ourselves atop a cliff overlooking an infinitude of red rock
badlands.
I've actually never really explored the Southwest of the
United States, but this is much how it looks in my imagination. We
snapped some photos and again were off for our ger for the night.
Soaking up the peace and
quite of the empty steppe is a beautiful way to spend an evening.
Our ger was in the middle of a very large dale. I sat for a time
with the camels listening to them crunch on the brittle grass.
There
was very little green; the spring rains had evidently not yet
showered here. In the distance I could see an occasional sheep
siloutted along the ridge and when the wind was right you could hear
them bleating across the miles.
Our ger had only 5 beds,
and Bud kept joking that he could “share” with our hostess, a
cute little Mongolian woman. Natalya was taken with the Mongolian
women from the start “they look like dolls” she would say.
Inwardly I cringed a little at the racial generalizations, but I
didn't disagree with the sentment.
Now Bud is something like
50, with a shaved head and a huge spare tire. For the first few days
of our trip his left eye was ringed in red – not blood shot,
bloody. Seems he and Rink had a REALLY good time on the
Trans-siberian, but that one night brought one Vodka bottle too many
and Bud awoke with an eyeball filled with blood. The red ring was
the remnant of an even worse start. So you have to picture this
giant vodka-guzzling guy, with his earrings and motorcycle-watch and
black t-shirt with a giant skull and this tiny little Mongolian,
demure and gentle and seemingly new to the world.
Bud and Rink travel a lot
together, both are either divorced or never married – it was sort
of unclear. Bud would joke about all his “ex-wives” but I think
anything with two-legs and a pulse qualified for the honorific.
About half-way into the nights vodka bottles (plural, yes) the guys
were retelling stories of previous trips. Bud waxed poetic about the
beauty of Thailand's beaches and jungles. “Everyone thinks you
just go to Thailand for the sex... I mean, yes you do, but the
beaches are really beautiful too!”
Bud did end up sleeping in
the other ger, but in his own bunk. Come morning when he found out
she was only 17, and the daughter of the family whose other gers were
barely visible on the horizon he seemed a little sheepish. Even to a
guy in a skull T-shirt, a 30-year age difference is impolitic.
Dinner was dried noodles
and rehydrated dried yogurt, and in portions more appropriate for a
svelte 5'4” local than a 6'7” guy and two bikers. Susan and I
cut up our bell peppers and made a hug bowl of pasta with olive oil
and the veggies. They wouldn't keep anyway, and we had enough for
everyone. We got lots of thanks and goodwill, especially from Bud as
he injected himself with extra insulin to counteract the extra
starch. No sooner had we all put down the extra food and Bud was
injecting again – this time to counteract the vodka bottle he and
Rink were opening.
Despite the quantities
consumed, the conversation never got above a certain tembre.
Something about the majesty of the environs causes the same sort of
sotto voce that one uses in a temple or church. Really, the unholy
racket didn't start until we went to sleep. Now I'm not one to throw
stones on this, because I know I can saw wood with the best of them,
but let's just say I found it sort of appropriate that these two
would be driving around in big bikes with drag pipes instead of
mufflers. They must keep about the same volume in daytime and
nighttime. Again, earplugs to the rescue.
Breakfast was tea and a
couple of cookies. Our bread was still passable, I never thought I
would miss all the preservatives they bake into these things at home,
but by the next day it was getting pretty sketchy.
Day 3 – See Ice Falls,
Ice Valley, See Bainzak town, Drive to Dinosaur Bones
From our second camp we
had a short drive to the town of Bainzak, where we planned to do a
little reprovisioning before heading off to see the “Ice falls”
and the “Ice Valley”. The food thus far has been less than
subsistence, and nothing fresh. The last of our veg was the cucumber
we sliced onto our near-wooden bread for lunch. But we'd gotten the
rhythem of cooking a little extra for dinner, and carrying some
bread/nuts/whatever for lunch. So we were eager to stock up on
stuff, especially some fresh veg for the next three days.
At this point anyone who
has actually been to Mongolia is laughing.
If you ever have a
conversation with one of those people who is like “Communism is
beautiful man, I mean, everybody is equal and works together, it's a
workers paradise” you gotta take them to a Mongolian supermarket.
Imagine a room thirty feet
by fifteen feet. Along the walls are shelves, and in front of these
is a counter. The centre of the room is empty. The sheves are
sparsely filled, and about half of the shelf space is given over to
household sundries – beauty products, diapers, really awful toilet
paper. About a third is vodka. The remaining sixth is cookies,
flour, dried rice, chocolate, dried meat, sketchy sausages, canned
meat and stale bread. For you non-math types, this leaves exactly
zero space for produce, which is how much they had. Not one veggie,
not one fruit. The only “juice” is orange soda (which I
discovered the next morning when I opened it).
Now to a journal writer
this part of the story is about how this would indicate that for the
next 13 days there would be nothing fresh – not one veg, not one
fruit, not one unpreserved piece of meat. To the social scientist
this is about how a part of the world without running water or
sewerage DID have “whitening face cream” whatever the hell that
is. Public sanitation is 'an important public good', but vanity, it
seems, is profitable no matter where you are. Guess which gets
priority in practice.
A drive and a hike brought
us to the ice falls.
It's technically not a glacier, just winter
snowpack sliding down the steep walls of steep canyons, but it sure
looks like a glacier. Two hours before we were in cookie-baking heat
in the middle of the desert, and here we were treading carefully lest
we slip on the ice and snow.
Back in the van and
another short hike brought us to the “Ice Valley”. It's a river
at the bottom of another impossibly steep canyon.
Even in May it's
frozen almost solid – reminder that without moisture to hold the
heat from the daytime sun, desert temperatures plummet once the sun
has set.
Rather than stay in the
bleak Bainzak (which Bud kept referring to as “Mine Sac” in a
crude bastardization of Dutch and Mongolian that needs no translation
to English) we plowed on to “Dinosaur Bones”, where we would
spend two nights.
Bud and Rink helped Doc
patch the tire we'd blown earlier, and then we're messing around with
one of the local's motorcycles. Neither of the guys speaks Mongolian,
and obviously no Mongolians speak Dutch, but Bud and Rink and Doc and
the host patriarch were all laughing histerically and halfway through
a bottle of the local engine degreaser (OK, the label technially says
vodka, but I am dubious) before the host women had boiled the water
for tea.
Dinner was pretty exciting
– noodles with a few flecks of dried meat (instead of yoghurt).
That night we had one of
the most beautiful sunsets I have ever witnessed – a scene of
steppe, and sheep and distant gers all painted with a humbling
palette.
