Mongolia | Gov-Altai Aimag | Trail to Shar Khuls

We soon left the flat saxual bush-dominated desert and entered a chain of east-west trending hills composed of crumbling black basalt. There was no vegetation whatsoever. It could have been the surface of moon. And all afternoon the wind had been picking up. By late evening it was blowing a non-stop fifty miles an hour out of the due west. As the sun went down we scanned the horizon for any sign of vegetation. There was none. We rode on in the dark until we came upon a few scraggly foot-high bushes of camel wormwood. The camel men and the girls finally got their tents set up—as usual I sleep out in the open, under the “Big Tent”—and we managed to gather enough pencil-sized twigs of wormwood to heat a pot of tea. Cooking a hot meal was out of the question. We ate bortsog, beslag, and sausage washed down with Yunnan Gold black tea heavily laced with sugar. Tsogoo is quiet but his face seems to have gotten some of its color back. I had given him some painkillers I got a couple of months earlier when I had almost dropped dead on the streets of Beijing from pneumonia and ended up in the Miners’ Hospital there (it specializes in lung problems). He said they helped a lot.

The bleak scene of our camp at sunrise

The wind blew all night and did not relent in the morning. We did not even bother trying to heat a pot of tea. We quickly loaded the camels and moved on. Tsogoo thinks we should be back in the saxual bush desert by noon. We will eat then.

Ready to move on

Moving on . . .

Still moving on . . .

By midmorning we left the black hills and entered a chain of sandstone and light-colored conglomerate ridges. Hidden among the fold of the hills is a small salt lake. I asked Tsogoo if it has a name. He says it does but that the name is never mentioned anywhere near the lake. To do so might offend the Guardian Spirits of the place. He says he will tell me tonight, when we have moved out of the vicinity.

Approaching the unnamed salt lake

Passing the salt lake

The salt lake

We leave the hills and emerge onto the flat Shargiin Gov. Here there are saxual bushes for firewood. Several times that morning I had heard Tsogoo use the word, aav, which mean father. Then I quite clearly hear Tsogoo ask Mojik in Mongolian, “Where does father want to stop for lunch?” What’s he talking about? I asked Mojik. “Well,” said Mojik, we were talking about this on the trail this morning. Tsogoo has decided that we are like a little family traveling together.” Tsogoo said that Uyanga is the mother, always bustling around the campfire preparing food and tea for her brood. Tsogoo himself is the oldest son, in charge of the camels and camp, and Sükhee is his younger brother, always ready to help in any way possible. I, it seems, am the Father. This is a role I have never played before. Tsogoo says I always ride by myself, never saying much, and that when we stop I just throw out my carpet by the campfire and sit quietly by the fire drinking tea, just keeping a watchful eye on the others as if they were my family. I had noticed that I was always served tea and food first before anyone else, but I had assumed this was because I was the oldest in the group. Now it appears I am the Father. “And who are you in this family?” I asked Mojik. “Well,” she said, “it seems like I am the Bad Daughter, because I always get up last and don't help very much with the cooking.“ That was not fair. Getting up last is a traditional perk of translators, and in order to lure her out of her warm nest in Ulaan Baatar into the Gobi Desert in October I had promised her she would not have to help with the cooking. “Oh, don’t worry about it,” she said, “Tsogoo is just joking . . . I think.” She laughs. In her regular life she is the Good Daughter. Maybe she is enjoying a temporary stint as the Bad Daughter. She can always go back to being the Good Daughter later.

After lunch we move on across the Shargiin Gov and by sunset reach the northern foothills of the Zaraa Khairkhanii Nuruu. The wind never ceases for second. Now it is blowing maybe sixty miles an hour. We settle for the night in a ravine running down from the flanks of Zaraa Khairkhanii Nuruu. There are saxual bushes for firewood but the ravine is sandy and our tea, food, and everything else is quickly covered with a fine layer of grit. The others soon retire to their tents. I sleep out in the open, watching first the Big Dipper wheel in the sky and then towards morning brilliant Orion.

Mother Uyanga gulping her tea before it is covered with grit