Day 45 - Mongolia Tour. Naiman Nurr National Park

Day 7 on Tour.
We were woken at 6.45am by an alarm & were delighted to hear the wind had died down & that we weren't in danger of being pelted with sand anymore.
The plan was to set off by 8am, but when Jackie checked the van he discovered a slow leak in one of the tyres & needed to repair it. Less than an hour later we were off!

It's a big day of driving as we leave the Gobi desert region & head into central Mongolia. An approximate total of 300 km's on bumpy dirt roads. It was around 11am when we started to notice the first shades of green grass covering the hills. As we left the desert further behind the temperature drops but the grass became greener, longer & the herds became larger. It also started to get dramatically colder. Despite the green grass, the herds of livestock looked thinner & we saw a larger number of dead animals. The animals living in the Gobi desert spend hours digging up roots & sparse amounts of grass to eat, proving there is food!

Here the grass looked abundant, plenty for everyone... maybe it's not high in nutrition or the animals expend more energy staying warm ? Whatever the reason, the death toll here is higher & the rolling green hills were tainted with the dead who weren't strong enough to survive winter. We stopped at 1.30pm for lunch in a scenic village & restocked our vodka supplies before continuing on. At 4pm we stopped at the entrance of Naiman Nurr National Park to stretch our legs & photograph Mongolia's Orkhon River.

While admiring the view a few tiny snow flakes fluttered by my face. It was so exciting to see! We kept driving for another 2 hours into the national park & were confronted by a swirling snow storm that progressively got heavier, blanketing the sky in whiteness. When we got to our ger camp there was a solid foot of fresh powder covering the ground. The nomadic family greeted us with hot milk tea, dinner & some home made fermented berry wine. The wine contains 3 types of wild berries picked in the mountains & fermented. The family will drink it all through the winter as a deterrent for the common cold.

The nomadic family is a young, attractive couple, who have 2 young children, a puppy, a modest herd of goats & sheep and a few Mongolian horses. The husband, who'd shortened English name is Bakky, will be our horse guide over the next few days.

Tom & I spend an hour or so running around in the snow with the puppy & the goats. It's so magical to be in the snow, in the national park. I feel like we have been shown another of Mongolias hidden, natural beauties.
Hopefully the snow doesn't get too heavy or turn into rain.

We were told Mongolia is a place you can see the 4 seasons in 1 day, we definitely did today. We awoke in the dry, dusty desert, then crossed kilometers of green hills under the bright sun & blue skies, we are going to sleep in our ger listening to the eerie silence of snow fall.

- Alli