By Marijke and Trudy

High through the Altai Mountains

Wednesday May 15

This morning Dirk and Nico replaced both steering knuckles.

After a luxurious coffee we resume our journey via the gas station. On the edge of the city we were stopped by the police, who wanted to see Dirk’s driver’s license. But actually they

wanted to take a picture of the T-Ford. We were advised not to drive any further due to the strong wind and poor visibility. But we continued. There was certainly a strong wind, but Dirk has strong arms to keep the T-Ford under control. We drive through a beautiful mountain landscape and later it became more desert-like. The road is good.

During the coffee break, a large tanker full of petrol stopped next to us: we could really use that.

After this, Oko goes into the T-Ford and Trudy into the Land Rover. Oko thinks it’s beautiful and enjoys it. She feels like a queen of the Model-T-Worldtour

We build our camp just outside the town of Darvi. The resident of the ger drives up with his son. He told us that there is a natural water source that we can use.

Thursday May 16

After breakfast we go to get water.

Long steep roads up and down the mountain. We have strong headwinds. T-Ford full throttle. For better cooling of the engine, we remove the entire hood.

The mountains look beautiful in the sunlight and invite us to film and photograph. The landscape is magical and we look for a camping spot. We stop in a flower meadow and it smells wonderful. The wind was blowing very hard while we were setting up the tents. We set them up tight using rock pegs.

Cooking is not going so well because of the strong wind. The stove flops and smokes. Dirk puts it between the rocks. And the four of us get the food cooked.

Friday May 17

Dirk has cleaned the stove and now it burns again without a whistle. Trudy is very happy because without a fire there would be no coffee and tea on the mountain.

The colors that the landscape had last night have now been changed by the sunlight. It is almost impossible for us to describe it all.

It is now chilly, which is nice for cooling the engine and we can wear all our thick clothes again.

Today’s surprise is that we see yaks (a type of cattle also known as the beef cattle).

Along the road we also saw a carcass with about 13 vultures around it. We are seeing this for the first time. There were many carcasses in the desert, but not a vulture to be seen.

A man from Kazakhstan took pictures of us with the T-Ford and gave us a flag of his country.