It was cold waking up this morning but not terrible.  We had a great breakfast and hiked up a ~1600m mountain while the herdsmen got the yaks and horses ready.  Suddenly, my hot rock idea is pretty popular!  Susan and the older Korean had a little trouble with the climb but they found some pinecones and red berry things for dinner.

The horses were pretty rowdy today.  They wanted to run and it was difficult to control them.  Glad it was a short ride today.  We also stopped to visit a nomad family today who demonstrated how to make mare’s milk vodka.  Pretty interesting.  There was a French woman there who is staying with the family for a month.  She was here last year on a tour and met the son, and apparently hit it off enough to come back and have an experience.

Oh, the black dog from yesterday stayed with us all day and didn’t leave us until we were almost to our camp for the night.  As it turns out, he belongs to the nomad family we had met!

The flies are insanely prolific.  I have never seen so many.  It was pretty irritating.  But I was able to try a little bit of nighttime photography tonight.  We could hear another group camping on the other side of the lake and had some fun trying to spot their campfire.  Glad we were not with those people, they sounded loud and drunk.