More of the steppe

Well, let's see if this works better today.

So, after an easy start, we headed off-road, sometimes on various ruts but often just lurching across the grasslands, fording rivers, and making our own way. We had an anthropoligist in the lead van who had spent most of his life secretly studying Chingis Khan-- the subject was taboo during the Soviet era, a possible nationalist rallying point that was forbidden. He navigated sort of like sailors of old-- just knowing the mountains and terrain, sometimes a familiar ger. Horsies, sheep, goats, cows, and the now-and-then camel everywhere, with the occasional herder boy attending the flock but mostly just grazing. Whenever you hear a population count for a "province" (soum) they also always give the livestock headcount!

The vans too had a life of there own: Chingis, the lead van; Jamuga, the life-long friend turned traitor (who now and then tried to pass the lead van), and then the Von Khan Van, ruled by the German prof, who saw to it that nobody pilfered from the provisions, kept in her van (I was happy to be in her van, just in case the group thing went weird). Sometimes it seemed like we were racing around like the horses, just going here and there as we liked, playing games.


For food we did the traditional thing: drop in unannounced at whatever ger (yurt) happened to be nearby-- in such a sparsley populated land unexpected callers both needed to taken care of and provided a bit of entertainment. Of course, with such a large crew we would usually ask at one ger where a ger might be that could feed us, and then wander off in search of it. Here is my favorite. As the grandma and grand-daughter were getting tea and food for us, gramps road back in on his horse, slilghtly bemused to see this gaggle of foreigners poaching his food. . . and then out came the home-made yogurt vodka-- damn, it had a punch. The fella kinda reminds me of Captain Bob from our marina. . .



They live far away from everything-- no cars, electric, nada. Some gers have vehicles, solar panels and satellite dishes, but most have none.