It was a lovely,
sunny day today, so after breakfast, we all had an impromptu cleaning
session outside the ger, giving our hair a much-needed wash. We then
piled into the van and headed for our next homestay, stopping not far
into the journey to climb up a steep hillside for a great view over
the partly forested, hilly countryside. A pair of peregrine falcons
was nesting in the cliff below our viewing platform and as we walked
back to the van, we saw the parent birds flying back to the nest and
heard the chicks cheeping out for their meals.
After driving over a
high pass, we headed down into a long, wide valley between low hills.
Dotted along the margins were the little white bumps of gers and
after a while we came across a few nomads tending to their mixed
flock of goats and sheep. Nyama stopped to ask for directions to our
family. It was he who had first identified the families with whom we
are staying (along with another Mongolian Panoramic Journeys
employee, and as it has been some time since he was in the area, they
were rarely where they were when he first met them (they are nomads,
after all). In truth, I was always slightly amazed when we arrived at
a new camp – as I mentioned earlier, Nyama is using neither sat nav
nor GPS nor even a map - but with a pointed arm from the herder we
set off and were soon pulling up at tonight's accommodation.
This camp was
extremely exposed – just a rocky hillside behind and in front, the
broad, bare plain. The two gers were inhabited by two families –
sisters and their husbands, two three-year-old girls and a
one-and-a-half-year-old, who burst into tears when she was introduced
to us in the ger, where we all enjoyed some mercifully milk-free tea.
Here, again, the curds were offered and passed around, each of us
politely taking a piece and then surreptitiously secreting it in
whatever pocket or bag we had to hand.
After a lunch of
very spicy pot noodles, Kate, Zoe and I walked up the hill behind the
camp, from where we watched Sarah walking some distance out to our
freshly dug pit toilet, and then saw the families' sheep and goats
coming in. Then, back on the flat land, we sat on a camp bed behind
the van talking to Tuul and Nyama, and watching the family reuniting
their animals with their offspring. A while later, our host arrived
on his stocky little pony. He came over sat with us, offering us some
of his snuff – a rather ritualised process that again, was
something of an honour for us.
While this was going
on, Zoe was being terrorised by the two three-year-olds. Whenever she
tried to escape back to us, they would grab an arm each and pull her
away to play strange, arcane games involving cow dung. Later, the
wind began to pick up, eventually becoming very strong, and bringing
with it a brief rain squall. As it swirled around the ger, our dinner
arrived, which proved to be a real treat – the family had gone away
and procured some fresh meat for us, which they turned into some
lovely dumplings. Eventually the rain stopped and the wind died down,
leaving behind a faint rainbow.
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