The Gobi Desert

How can you not love a camel with foul teeth? The camel below was kind enough to take me for a ride on the sand dunes in the Gobi Desert. When our group’s minivan pulled up to the sand dunes, a nomadic family appeared on camelback, trotting toward our camera-carrying bunch with more camels in tow. For a five-dollar charge, I climbed aboard a camel and took a walk around the dunes. Mongolians call camels living dinosaurs, and after taking a ride, I would agree.

After the camel ride, the nomadic family was more than happy to help me indulge in my greatest shopping weakness: rocks. The Gobi is a great place to find geodes, and I am a shopper. The Gobi is also the best region in the world to find dinosaur bones. The famous “fighting dinosaurs” now located in the Mongolian Natural History Museum were found here. A Velociraptor and a Protoceratops were engaged in a brawl that became frozen in time around 80 million years ago when a sand dune is suspected to have collapsed on them. Rocks that sparkle and fighting dinosaurs, now we’re talking.

I also indulged in a bit of rock shopping while visiting the Flaming Cliffs in the Gobi. Just a short minivan ride from our tourist camp, the Flaming Cliffs look a great deal like the red rock formations seen in Utah. The photo of the man next to tables of rocks was taken at the very edge of one of the cliffs. I purchased more than my fair share of rocks from him as well.

During our stay in the Gobi, we had an opportunity to stay at a ger camp. The ger (a traditional round nomadic home) is actually more comfortable than I had anticipated. With two twin beds, a dresser, mirror and stove, the ger comfortably houses two guests. Nomadic families normally own one ger that usually houses at least four people. These close living quarters could make nighttime ripe for claustrophobia.

My friend and I decided to take a walk near our tourist camp and met a young nomadic girl. We couldn’t believe that we actually ran into a person in the vast, empty landscape. I saw old Russian motorcycles passing by our camp in the distance, but never anyone on foot. The young girl didn’t speak English, but motioned for us to follow her to her family’s ger. As we approached, the girl’s sister and grandmother came out to greet us and invited us into their ger for milk and cheese curds. Nomadic herders are known for their hospitality, but I was surprised when I experienced it first hand.

The family herded sheep and goats and owned two gers, a motorcycle, and a satellite dish. The conversation inside the ger was pretty limited as I stumbled through the pages of my pocket-size Mongolian phrasebook to find a way to tell the grandmother where we are from and to compliment her food and home. My first taste of fresh goat milk…and an aftertaste that lasts far longer than is preferable.

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