By Marijke and Trudy

Driving across the steppe of Mongolia

We leave Baruun-urt, say goodbye to the children and the team of our project. We are taken to a beautiful place on the edge of the city with statues. Food is also brought to us, so today we have a nice lunch on the way.

We have had heart-warming days here.

After saying goodbye we drove back into the desolation. A white car drove in front of us and

drove our pace. Quite striking. After 40 kilometers we had to turn off at a real signpost. The man in the white car turned out to be an employee of the project and he was heading in this direction to go to his family. He rode up with us. This meant we didn’t have to look for directions. We see a lot of horses, the greenery is emerging a bit and we don’t meet anyone for hours. The deserted landscape stretched all the way to the horizon, around us. We place a stone at a beautiful Ovo and walk around it three times. That’s how it should be. We are allowed to enter a Buddhist temple here. Beautiful and colorful.

During our visit to this temple, Oko received an invitation to stay at a kindergarten in Tuvshinshiree. Once there we were warmly welcomed with milk tea and dumplings. The mats were already rolled out for us in the playroom.

After a warm night and a delicious breakfast of fresh bread with butter and jam we left. We were taken back to the right road and waved goodbye and, above all, invited to come again. It gets rockier and we enjoyed the endless views. We only came across one car today: a fire truck with its flashing lights on.

Many horses are waiting at a waterhole. We want to fill the bins, but there are no buckets and we can’t get the pump to work. Too bad.

The Model T and Dirk are a golden team. Bypassing all holes and bumps we pass through Mongolia.

Marijke said: Look up. Clouds in the shape of a ger.

We looked for a place to sleep, set up the tents during strong winds and when they were finally up, the wind died down.

The moon was beautiful and we took some special pictures.

The next day we drove towards Bor-Undur where we went to a shop near a school that had just ended. All the children stormed the Model T, very enthusiastic, friendly and polite. We had to get water from a waterhole, where we met a beautiful woman. We did not have to pay for the water ourselves. There was a man there who had seen us on YouTube and loved our trip. He treated the water.

We stopped at a rock formation for a photo session.

Then we got a bit lost because of the many off-road roads that crossed the steppe landscape. We came to some kind of river that we had to cross. Marijke jumps out of the LandRover to film us, but then also had to cross the water. The Ger man who was standing there picked her

up with his motorcycle. He led us to the right path. When we went to bed, the full moon was beautiful red.