It is cold this morning!  Our dung fire burnt out in the night, which was fine for sleeping, but there was a definite chill when we got up.  My guess was low 50s but now that the sun is coming up it has been steadily warming.  Parts of this trip remind me of Afghanistan, but not in a bad way.  There’s a squat toilet which actually doesn’t smell too much, surprisingly.  Then brush your teeth in stream water, but probably don’t drink any.  I didn’t sleep very well tonight.  Not because of the cold, but because the beds were pretty hard.  Sleeping on your back was okay, but I am a side sleeper.  It was hurting my shoulder and I kept waking up to adjust.

The trek out was interesting.  The horses are half-wild to begin with, and later we found out this is the first time they have been out of the pasture since before winter.  So they were a little (a lot) spooky.  Same for the yaks. As soon as they were let off the line, two of them made a break for it (with all our food and gear tied on) heading for the hills.  The wranglers had to go chase them down, and the male yak kept trying to escape until we got over the first mountain.  The horses calmed down a little bit after that as well.

The hallmarks of the day were steep ascents, steep dismounted descents, and cold wind.  We finally reached the campsite around 4:30pm.  A friendly black dog came up to greet us and hung out for the rest of the night.  We taught the Mongolians to play 20 Questions, and after dinner, we all hung out around the fire for a few hours.  They were laughing at me because I found a nice flat rock and was heating it lightly near the fire.  I went totally 1600’s with the bed warming rock idea.  It was cold that night, but I was toasty warm in my sleeping bag.  With my warm rock.  Temperature was low 40s.  Somehow they talked me into singing and got about four songs out of me.