Day 5 in the Gobi

WE get to sleep in today. I woke to a herd of goats going thru our camp. WE hiked into the surrounding dunes this morning looking for dinasor fossils. No luck. But lots of little lizzards and birds.
We drive to Bayanzag or the flaming cliffs. The tops of these cliffs were the bottom of the sea once. Crazy to comprehend. The rock formations are out of this world. They are flaming red hence the name. We do the photo op of course buy a few trinkets from a couple of local cute kids and head out into the dunes to play. But first we have to fill our jugs with water from the well. Ok so there are these wells all over that they use for themselves and for watering the livestock. this one was a small brick building with no door. There is a hole in the ground with a piece of wood covering it. the wood had holes all through it. You walk through the sheep and goat muck that is inside the shed. Take off the wood "covering" and lower a stick with an old tire sewn into a "bucket" into the well. Scoop some out and try to fill your container before all the holes in the "bucket" let all the water out. Meanwhile there are little faces poking into the holes in the wall trying to lick any moisture they can. So of course I help. And Can't believe we are going to drink this water even if it is boiled and treated. Not good.

WE drive into the sand dunes. We went to the little dunes because the big dunes were far away and we opted for little dunes and the Naadam instead of just the big dunes. Of course it is blowing like crazy and looks ominous in the skies. I ask if we can use a local families camels and go for a ride in the dunes. Of course!!! So we stop and pop into a ger. The most friendly people sit us down and give us our first Airag. That is the fermented mare milk. It has a mild alcohol level. We only have a bit. I like it ,it is pretty tangy , It isn't to Ann's liking. She tries not to make a face. We chit chat and the I ask the woman if I can pet the baby camels. She says ok. So off we go. The babies aren't tourist friendly so the petting didn't last long. She asked me if I wanted to milk the mommmy. Why not. Never milked a camel before. So I did. I have decided that professional camel milking is not in my future. We then saddle up and go for our short ride. The wind is howling off the tops of the dunes and I don't want skin resurfacing. So they lead us up the dunes and along the tops. It was painful and it is now 2 days later and my butt bones still hurt. The lady then asked if we wanted to see her homemade crafts for sale. of course we said. So we stocked up on souveniers. She asked if I wanted to learn to sew a tourist camel. What do you think I said. yeppers. So she got out her crafting supplies. A hide from a newborn goat that didn't make it. oohhh so sad. But soo soft. We traced out a 2 hump camel on it and cut out our pattern. Then I sewed mine. Took me oh around 1.5 hrs. embarassing. she did hers in 10 min. She left us and went to make supper. I kept sewing mine. It started to get dark and I took a break and went into their cooking ger for some tea. She gaves us some soup made with camel meat. It was good. And we tried this root. It is from a fower that only grows in the gobi. they dry it and use it for tummy problems. She gave us a little bit to use for the rest of the trip. It was sooooooooo bitter. sucked every bit of moisture out of my mouth. they all laughed and kept on munching theirs like it was an apple. I took this break in the nasty weather to try to slide down a dune on my garbage bag. It is on my list of things to do. Wasn't sure how it would work. The kids were all in of course this is their back yard. We race to the top. I sucked wind of course and they did it with no shoes on. I jumped on my bag while they held it for me and .... nothing. I just sank in the sand and stayed there. Jenny Craig here I come. The kids laughed but weren't discouraged. They took me to a steeper slope. I tried a running start. Nope . just a whole lot of sand in a whole lot of places. Well it was fun trying.
I did finish sewing my camel and we stuffed it with wool and she sewed on little feet and eyes. I gave it a haircut so that it had some definition and voila! A camel that no tourist in their right mind would buy. Crooked legs and kinda wobbly. So she gave it to me. I love it.
We made up our beds and went to sleep to the camels calling.