Horses in the Gobi Gurvansaikhan National Park
Although this looks pretty "green" this is an artifact of using a zoom: each blade of grass is rather far from its neighbors !
The hotel restaurant !
She is fixing the roof. Note the solar panel!
Wild irises
Bunnies
The Yolyn Am ice field (not much ice but this is June in a desert !
The road and river share the space
The Yolyn Am canyon: can we drive through ??
David is scouting !
Fold the mirror !
The population is very sparse in the Gobi, and the nomadic life is more and more replaced by sedentary life as herders now have pumps to get water and obviously pumps can be moved around. So we drive for long periods before seeing any Ger (the tent often called by their Russian name: Yurt).
David and I kept wondering: "How do they do if they have an ectopic or an appy ?" The nearest village is several hours away by car and does not have a hospital. For that this is at least 6 hours drive, and anything more needs to be flown in Ulan Batar !
The desert has many appearances with large areas covered of sharp rocks that surprisingly tend to me of similar sizes in one location but not an uniform size from location to locations.
The first Bactrian camels
The grass density explains the toughness of the meat !!
Looks green huh ?
Look closer !
The beginning of the Khongoryn Els: the singing sand dunes
A far away antelope (probably not the Saiga :( )
So how do boys and girls date here ? 3 hours camel ride ?
Our hotel. Due to some snafus they did not pump water ahead and we had 500 cc for our shower. Easy to get wet, but hard to wash the soap off !
Rent-a-camel
"Jealous of my eyelashes huh ?"
with no tree to attach camels they are tied up by a Y-shaped stick in their nose, and one end of the stick retained by a washer made from an old tire is tied to a log. Obviously they have sensitive noses, poor camels!
Once in place it is very comfortable, but when the camel gets up or down, it is very hard to stay in the saddle.
The camel helps size the dune. Some of them are up to 300 m tall although most are only 80m.
Why eat grass when there is all this tempting sand ?
These are 2 camels ! not ants :)
Khongoryn Els is 6-12 km wide and 100-180 km long
David and I made it !
Fearsome canines for a herbivore !
David and the guide attempted to climb the dune but got about 80% up.
The flying sand
Some scarabs
Some plants have long runners
A Swan goose ! How unexpected in a desert !
Ha ha !! T^his park is 27,000 square km. Park where you find place !
A city !
Ibex family
Humans are vastly outnumbered by their...
... livestock !
A heard of Bactrian camels, unfortunately shorn !
This one needs a hump-pexy !
One down, one up. Flacid hump mean she needs to rebuild her reserves.
Try that next time you have a frontal itch!
Fermented camel milk: truly an aquired taste !
A restaurant, with the table under the oculus
Bayanzag Red Cliffs
The Saxaul tree (misspelled everywhere on the internet as Saxual!) or shrub can reach about 2 meters and is able to survive in this part of the Gobi even with the low rainfall which occurs in summer. A few of these srubs is actually called a "forest !" ha ha !
The red cliffs contain many dinosaurs in particular Protoceratops
