DAY 22

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We awoke to another crisp and perfect morning after a good night’s sleep. (only a slight tinge of a headache from the bull’s blood but it was gone in no time) We had a one and a half our hike (more of a wander really) over the hills to Turtle Rock planned so, after a leisurely breakfast we wandered off. As I said before the scenery here is spectacular and there are no fences so you can just wander where ever you wish. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful clear day, after about 5km or so we reached our destination but as the rock had quite a few people on it already we moved on to a Monastery on the hill. Among other things there were some paintings around the outside that graphically depict what is going to happen to you if you are not good! (Sorry but I can’t publish the photos) More spectacular scenery and a picnic lunch (or peekneek for the Aussies!) and we headed back to climb Turtle Rock which wasn’t as high as it looked. Back to camp and a few of the more adventurous went horse riding on the famous Mongolian horses Genghis conquered the world on. I had only ridden a horse once before and then it was only walking, but this time we could let loose (after a little while) and I have to admit although it was a little unnerving at times it was great fun. (although writing this 2 days later my bum is still sore!) The next event for the day was a visit to a genuine Mongolian nomadic family which was a ‘retired’ couple in their seventies, but at this time they had family who were staying for the school holidays, we didn’t see them all but there were at least 2 younger children staying at grandma and grandpa’s for the holidays. It seems like the nomads who live in this area have it pretty easy by nomad standards as they only have to move about 100 metres from their summer place to their winter place but others have to move up to 30 km, it still must be hard camping at -30 deg but! Grandma invited us all into her ger which looked very comfortable, complete with tv and freezer, and we talked for a while while she served us natural yoghurt with sugar, some doughnut type bites, and some hard pieces of dried curd. It was all remarkably tasty, especially the yoghurt of which I had seconds. Then she served us all some milk tea, which as the name suggests is like a half milk, half hot water and very weak cup of tea. This family has a couple of cows a small herd of sheep and goats, a dog and a cat. They also have a second ger which they use as a kitchen, normally everything is in the one ger except the toilet, so whether it’s rain, hail or -30deg they always have to go outside to the toilet. We wandered over to their winter place and took a look at their stables and things where they kept their animals when it gets really cold and that was it for our visit. We all said our biakla’s and headed back to our camp for our last dinner there. During our beers on the deck we played a bit of dress up (Boggie insisted!) in the Mongolian costumes before dinner which was basically the same fare as last night. After dinner we watched a movie about this Mongolian nomad family (no surprises there), it was ok but the seats were hard, my bum was sore and most of us were just about falling asleep. A quick dribbly shower and bed followed shortly after.

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