By Trudy en Marijke

Four days in the desert

We say goodbye to the family in the ger who have literally and figuratively given us a warm welcome. They take us to a natural water source where we could fill our jerry cans with healing water for the stomach and intestines. See if it also works well for the diarrhea. The animals also know where to find this watery spot between the rocks. When they are on their way, we occasionally ask the nomads if we are going in the right direction. Yes, we are on the right track. The country looks beautiful with all those patches of snow that are still there. We are still dealing with the cold wind, but Kees, our mascot since 2007, is still enjoying the cold for a while. In the meantime, we fantasize about a hotel in Govi-Ugtaal with a bath. When we get there, we find a hotel in a ger with a beautiful toilet.

It is Sunday morning and Marijke arrives with a chocolate croissant. Nice breakfast, quite a luxury hotel. Today we drive towards a mine where we are picked up by friends of Oko, where we can stay in their extra ger. The hood belt is about to burst and is being repaired by the friend. We get delicious food and

then we learned to milk the goat. That wasn’t easy. We got a few streams out and were already very proud.

In the morning we received a gift, a self-made game from the bones of a goat or sheep. Dirk sings the mother’s song to the woman and the man sings along beautifully. Very moving. Now it’s time to comb the cashmere goat. A maximum of 400 grams comes from a goat per year. That is why cashmere is exclusive.

The hood was properly secured again and we drove towards the vastness of the steppe again. We see goats and camels along the way. We rattle and collide on the Mongolian steppe. Dirk and Trudy can say twice a day that it is a bad road. But sometimes twice a day is not enough to express the emotion. Then comes the asphalt. We go 27 kilometers on that road and it goes fast and the wind is cold around our heads in the Model T. Fortunately, we can get off again and drive quietly to a nice camping spot.

In the morning, men pass by and laugh when they see the small engine of the T-Ford. They know the Model T from a movie. They know a driver song and sing it for us here. Dirk receives a Mongolian coat from the family we live near in Ger. A part. Beautiful.

This day the LandRover and the Model T drive next to all the roads because they are so bad.

This is the day of driving off the road. We look for a place to sleep in Delgerkhangai and are offered a place in a large school. Food is also made for us there. The big surprise here is that there is a bathhouse in the village. We returned from the bathhouse as beauties. What a blessing!!

It has been the case for a number of weeks that if we needed help asking for the right route, someone would come our way or a ger would appear in the deserted landscape.