Crawling out of my tent in the early Mongolian morning, I look across a vast steppe covered in a colorful carpet with intricate patterns. There are chives growing, as far as the eye can see and they’re all in flower. Literally millions of mauve and white heads bobbing gently in the morning breeze. A delicious, heady scent of herbs permeates the air as I move around our Land Rover, searching for my red tin mug.
We’re camped on the edge of an enormous open valley. It’s like a giant basin, rimmed with dark towering mountains…..sentinels in the early morning light.
Mongolia, the Land of the Great Blue Sky is indeed living up to her name on this crystal clear day.
“People pay squillions to wake up to a 360 degree view like this” I think, as I take in the beauty which lies before me and languish in my chair, sipping my steaming coffee. It’s an idyllic scene and as I absorb the smells, sights and sounds, I wonder how long it will be till the wind wakes from her nightly slumber and begins to roar.
I think back to two nights ago when we were camped in the Khongoryn Els Sand Dunes. Our nice little dome tent with the “cute little vents and lots of netting for great airflow”…just didn’t cut it! A wind from hell blew in during the night and hammered us for over six hours. I felt as though someone was standing over me with a giant pepper -shaker, spilling it over my face all night. I’m sure the wind speed was over sixty kilometres per hour because most of the time my tent was so bowed in that it was touching my face. I could hear the gusts coming through the dunes, like roaring waves or is it…a screaming banshee? I spent most of the night cowering into my sleeping bag to keep the sand from getting in my eyes, nose and ears.
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