The ger appeared on the horizon as a white dot against brown earth, and for an hour it did not seem to get any closer. The Gobi Desert is not sandy, as most people imagine. It is a high-altitude plateau of gravel, scrub, and rock, where the horizon curves away in every direction and distance is impossible to judge. I was traveling with a driver named Batbayar and a guide named Oyunaa, in a Russian van called a UAZ that had been manufactured in 1988 and repaired with parts from at least three other vehicles. We were heading to a nomad family who had agreed to host us for two nights. The family had no phone, no address, and no fixed location. Batbayar found them by memory, following landmarks that looked identical to me.
Life in a Ger
A ger is a circular felt tent, the traditional dwelling of Mongolian nomads. The family I stayed with, a couple in their fifties with three grown children who had moved to Ulaanbaatar, owned two hundred goats, fifty sheep, and five horses. Their ger was furnished with a cast-iron stove, a low table, and sleeping platforms covered with felt. There was no running water, no electricity, and no toilet. The family melted snow for water in winter and collected rainwater in summer. They moved their ger and their animals four times a year, following the grass. I helped the woman, Dorjoo, milk the goats in the morning. She could milk twenty goats in thirty minutes, her hands moving with a rhythm that came from decades of practice. The milk was warm, slightly sweet, and nothing like the goat milk sold in supermarkets.
The Flaming Cliffs and Dinosaurs
The Gobi is one of the world's richest dinosaur fossil sites. The Flaming Cliffs, a formation of red sandstone near the village of Bulgan, are where the first dinosaur eggs were discovered in 1923. I visited with Oyunaa, who had a degree in paleontology from the National University of Mongolia. She showed me fragments of bone embedded in the rock and explained that the Gobi preserves fossils unusually well because the arid climate prevents decomposition. We found a piece of Protoceratops rib that was exposed by recent erosion. Oyunaa photographed it, recorded the GPS coordinates, and left it in place. 'This belongs to Mongolia,' she said. 'Not to a museum in New York.'
The Naadam Festival
I timed my visit to coincide with the local Naadam, a summer festival of the 'three manly games': horse racing, wrestling, and archery. The horse race was the highlight. Children as young as five ride horses across fifty kilometers of open steppe, without saddles, navigating by instinct and memory. The race I watched had thirty riders. The winner was a nine-year-old boy who had been riding since he could walk. His horse was a Mongolian pony, small, shaggy, and bred for endurance. The boy received no prize money, only honor for his family and a bucket of airag, fermented mare's milk, which he drank without expression. I tried the airag. It tasted like sour yogurt mixed with vodka.
Getting There and Costs
The Gobi is accessible by a two-day drive from Ulaanbaatar or by a short flight to Dalanzadgad, the provincial capital. I flew to Dalanzadgad for ninety dollars round trip and met Batbayar there. A ten-day tour, including vehicle, driver, guide, accommodation in ger camps and with nomad families, and all meals, cost one thousand two hundred dollars. This is not cheap, but the Gobi cannot be visited independently without fluent Mongolian, a four-wheel-drive vehicle, and extensive desert navigation experience. The ger camps are basic but comfortable, with western-style toilets and solar-powered showers. The family stays are more authentic but require flexibility. I slept in my sleeping bag on a felt platform and woke at dawn to the sound of goats. It was one of the most grounding experiences of my travels.
