Mongolian Steppe

1st August 2017
Today is our first full day in Mongolia and we will be leaving the capital Ulaanbaatar.
After breakfast we had a briefing from Kenzo and met those on the trip that we didn't meet yesterday.
We will be travelling in an old Russian bus and we are told not to worry about the noises it makes on starting up or when changing gears at low speed. Our luggage will travel in a separate old Russian van. Our bus driver is called Khashaa and the luggage driver is Puujee.
Today we will travel 290km west with the last 30km off road to our first Ger camp, where we will stop for two nights. The camp is at the Hogno Khan mountain.
Before setting off we visited the bank, you could say we went in with a first full of dollars and came out with an arm full of Tugrik. To give you an idea a can of Coke is around 3000 Turgriks. On the way out of the city we stopped at a super market to buy drinking water as you can't drink the water even out in the country side. The super market was a on stop shop, everything from bottled water to washing machines. The one thing you could not buy was alcohol as that was all roped off. Each province has one dry day a month and in Ullanbattar it is the first day of each month.
We drove along a road cutting its way through the Steppe with herds of horses, sheep, goats and cows along the way.
For a lunch stop  Khashaa just left the road and headed up the side of an hill to a saddle so that we would have great views. Up on the hill was a Shaman Ovoo, which is a large pile of rocks/stones. You walk around it three times in a clockwise direction and toss an offering on to it, usually another rock, and then make a wish. Although Mongolia is mostly Buddhist, Shamanism was the original spiritualism. The tribes of the Steppe worshipped the sun, earth and sky.
A little bit after lunch Khashaa stopped for fuel and since it was a hot day we popped into a small shop to buy frozen yoghurt. Whilst there one of the ladies on the trip convinced a passerby to let her have a go on his horse.
Once we left the tarmac road we were on simple tracks. The Steppe has now given way to what's called the mountain Steppe and as we drove along we also saw a small herd of camels.
The Ger camp is a low impact camp and has special permission to be there. Each Ger sleeps two people and there is also a kitchen, a dining and a shower Ger. The water for the shower is heated by a fire and you have to pump the water by hand. Since it's a low impact site there is limited electricity, only just enough for the fridge to keep the food and beers cool. There are two long drop toilet huts.
We were well fed for our evening meal, the people working around the camp serving our food etc are the children of a family who have their Ger's set up just across the valley. They are goat herders and I believe that tomorrow afternoon/early evening, we are going to go visit them and help them milk the goats. Poor goats, they probably see the bus arriving and think oh no here we go again.
After the evening meal I had a walk out of camp up the hill a little way to take some photos looking down on our camp. On the way back to camp I could see lighting away to the south. It must have been a way off as I couldn't hear the thunder.
Anyway it's time for bed and my first night of many sleeping in a Ger.