This morning we bade goodbye to the camp staff and headed what I think ended up being northwest. We drove for 8 hours, so I’m not really sure where we are exactly. Hopefully I can find a map and figure it out. Peter scored more points in my book today by being a big Stan Rogers fan. They even talked me into singing a little bit of “Barrett’s Privateers.”
We crossed a wide plateau which had an old soviet base. Clearly it is now a Mongolian base. It was weird for me to be around a foreign military town. Like I should be working or something – I can’t explain it. Thankfully we didn’t stay there very long. We soon left the paved road behind and turned into a convoluted series of dirt lanes – tire tracks really. How our driver found his way around, I have no idea, but color me impressed. Before long we were in the mountains. There are yak herds everywhere! I love it. We passed through this one valley in particular that was just breathtakingly beautiful. The area was clearly volcanic in the distant past, and I’m pretty sure one erupted so violently that the top was blown off. Rock was strewn everywhere and one mountain in particular looked incomplete, and had rocks “streaming” down its sides. Plus, two large boulder chunks were nearby. Maybe I’ll get lucky and we will be in that area again so I can get a picture.
At the ger camp they demonstrated the local method for slaughtering sheep for food. They separated one from the herd and held it on its back so that it was laying belly up. They cut an incision on the abdomen, then reached in and stopped the heart. Not as upsetting as I thought it would be. The Arab way is harder on the animal, I think. Hardly any blood this way, and the sheep didn’t cry. Then again, by our guide’s description I had built it up in my head to be something horrific.
We had a surprise after dinner. Driving up, we noticed a wedding in the next camp over. Turns out they are relatives of our camp master, so we were invited to attend! These people drink a lot of milk. We were offered (and expected to drink) multiple rounds of: warm goat milk, homemade mare’s milk vodka, fermented mare’s milk, “normal” vodka, and ladies were offered some kind of berry wine in addition. Everyone from the area was there to help celebrate.
The Mongolian wedding ceremony is interesting. The bride and group begin celebrating at dawn of their wedding day, which is picked in advance with the help of a shaman to ensure an auspicous day. Guests arrive in the evening, and the groom shares a sip of fermented mare’s milk with guests when they enter to welcome them. Guests arrange themselves around the walls of the circular tent and make themselves comfortable for a long night.
Customs include passing multiple bowls of alcoholic beverages around the circle – not a good place to be if you are germophobic, but I got over it quickly. Eventually, the night transitioned to offerings and blessings of good will on the new couple, who look exhausted at this point. Everyone took turns offering a toast and a song. As outsiders, we opted to function in group mode. Susan gave a phenomenal blessing and I was nominated to sing on behalf of the group. I sang “Ave Maria” and impressed the locals.
The groom actually filmed me, Susan, a gentleman from Japan, and a local singer so that was pretty humbling. I also got to try mare’s milk candy. Not a fan, but the rest of the night was incredible.
Current altitude is between 7000-8000 ft.
Editorial note: Camp may conjure mental images of tent sites or cabins in a national park. This is far from the truth. The Mongols still live a nomadic lifestyle, so it would be more appropriate to describe this as the temporary place where the closest neighbor had set up for a few months. Families live in groupings of one or two gers I refer to as “camps” for ease of description.