Pika's and Gerbil's

6th August 2017
This morning we once again walked to the Flamming Cliffs but this time for those that wanted we walked across the top of the cliffs and then down a gorge to reach the bottom where we met the bus and those that didn't want to do the walk. It was only about 2 miles but the temperature was already into the high twenties. The cliffs are made of sandstone so are constantly eroding, I guess fossils must always be getting exposed.
After the walk we had a short ride to our new Ger camp, The Gobi Oasis, where we will be stopping for two nights. This camp is a slight change of plan. The previous tour stopped at our planned camp, got food poisoning and were kept awake at night by karaoke singing Koreans. When our tour company complained they did not receive a favourable response so have switched camps. The original camp was a another temporary one which would have been nice but I'm happy to give the food poisoning a miss.
On that way to the camp, during one of our stops to checkout a problem with the bus, I did manage to get a photo of one of those lizards that have been running around our feet.
After lunch we had a bit of free time before our next outing, I brought some ice-cream from the camp shop and no it was not curd ice-cream.
In the middle of the afternoon we drove out to the mountains and had a short walk along a gorge to a waterfall. It is normal for ice to remain in the gorge as the walls are that close it gets little sun. There was a little ice but not much as the recent rain had washed it away. In the gorge we saw Pika's which are small hamster like rodents, we also saw a gerbil. On the wall of the gorge there was a bird nest still with four young it, when one of the parents returned with food you could see four bright yellow mouths gapping open begging for the food. For us it would seem late in the year still to be in the nest. We hoped to see Ibex up on the rocks and although we kept an eye out for them none were to be seen. May be when we return to the mountains tomorrow we will get lucky and see one or two or even a Snow Leopard! They do live here but that's just wishful thinking. Next thing you know I'll want to see a Gobi Bear but as there are only 16 of those left in the wild I think that's unlikely too.