July 5 -- So as mentioned today was a travel day. It wasn't as bad as I expected even though I did sit in the back of the bus. Some of the trip was off road --our truck took off on the semblance if a path but it often disintegrated into traveling over grassland. I've definitely been on hikes with better tracks! Over the course of the trek, we transitioned from the grassland of the steppe to the edge of the Gobi, from green to nearly brown. We'll dive into the Gobi tomorrow.
We chanced upon a few random things that really were quite spectacular. We stopped to see some locals milking mares. They use it to make airag, a fermented milk drink, but we didn't get a chance to try it. We haven't had much in the way if truly local fare yet... The family had a lot of kids who we interacted with. One woman had bottles of bubbles which we gave them. The kids had obviously never seen that before, so they really got a kick out of it.
The second unplanned stop was to catch a horse race of a local Nadaam festival. We were very lucky to see that, as we were in the middle of nowhere. Nadaam is the local sports festival where kids compete in horse racing, archery, and wrestling. They race long distances with over thirty horses in the race. It was quite exciting to see them thunder by right there in the middle of the steppe. You could look about at times and see no sign of human life in any direction.
We're in a posh ger camp tonight. They had really nice showers that were better than my club! After dinner there was supposed to be a fashion show, but that didn't happen. So instead we dressed up instead. I have some nice pictures but they're on my camera. I'll post links after the trip.
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