Three Sheeps to the Wind

Day 3 in the Gobi Desert finds our team in the dusty outpost town of Dalanzagad, about 500k south of Ulaan Baatar. The past few days have been incredible, some of the most affecting of my trip. The desert is boundless and empty and hypnotic. Past few nights have been spent with Vodka straight from the bottle, watching the shooting stars and satellites spin overhead.

Last night, we stayed with a family in their guest ger. Sunset was spent practicing English with our host, Nanona, and playing basketball with her 10 year old nephew. Besides the family's four gers, there was no other civilization in sight.

The locals are universally interested in my hairy arms.

Yesterday, while we stopped for lunch, another 4WD stopped beside us and disgourged two older Mongolian men who stopped to meet us. We invited them to join us and offered our food and water. They also spoke Russian! Before long, we were chatting in simple sentences-- my first actual practice and it worked great. The rest of my team just watched on in curiosity as we babbled back and forth in Russian. They passed out cigarettes and I passed out the vokda and we spent an hour in the afternoon shade of the truck making friends and getting tanked.

Just had a shower at the public bath house and we popped in to the rudimenary internet center. Have to get back to tonight's ger now, our hosts are making us dinner. Last night was homemade noodles and potatoes with mutton. Yummy!