It was cold night. How cold? Enough to freeze a small bottle of water I had left outside my tent. So cold that when I had to answer a call of nature in the middle of the night, I had to get fully dressed. And I was still freezing! We got some rest anyway and filled up with a triple ration of porridge and fried eggs topped with a shot of whisky to get some energy in our bodies before our next leg of the journey.
We were camped next to lake Tsagaan Nur which means white lake, 16 KM long, 20m deep and 61Km in area. In the middle of it is a volcanic island covered in grass. Many birds – ducks and geese as well as cormorants. Red deer, Siberian deer and some wild bears are understood to be around.
Today we have 336Km to cover to our next camp site, all dirt tracks. Our first Timed test is only 25Km later. We make slow progress up to over 2,600m, the highest pass to date. The slope is steep and the lower atmospheric pressure saps power out of the engine. The track is rough full of potholes and corrugation which shake the car and us to the bone. There are many yak herds some crossing the road while we pass.
As we come back down the pass, a stunningly beautiful valley opens up in front of us. we pass by some mountain lakes and streams, the only places where there is some vegetation on the ground as well as some trees, mainly pines.
The rest of the landscape is barren. We have to pass over some small wooden bridges. This needs to be done with care because although we are not particularly concerned about falling through one as Borghese did during his journey, we need to watch out for any nails which may stick out and destroy our tires.
We reach a small village and are told to watch out for children. In fact there are very few around as they are probably still at school. There are some older people who look at us as if we had just come down from Mars. They do not look scared, just very surprised to see so much traffic going through their town. It is likely that they will see at most 10-20 cars going through your typical Summer day instead of over 100 in a couple of hours and probably far fewer in the Winter.
Beyond the village it’s multiple-choice tracks again for several miles, some sandy and pleasant to drive over despite some undulations, others stony and corrugated and potholed which we have to slow down over to almost a crawl to avoid the car falling apart. It is really very rough!
We pass by some Yurts which seem to have adapted to modern times with solar panels and satellite dishes which allow them some form of entertainment and communication with the outside world.
We finally reach our the town of Uliastay, one of the most remote regional capitals of Mongolia. There we have the final timed control which we’ve blown by a long shot. I think this the case for a lot of the cars. At the entrance of the town we spot a sign pointing to a hotel, a very tempting alternative to the camp site which is another 30Km after the town. Mattia and I decide we are going to go for it. It’s getting dark and our lights are not working properly so we need to fix them before continuing. We are also dead tired and the prospect of another 30Km of dirt does not appeal to us one bit. We can reach the camp site early in the morning and start from there. We refuel and note that several of the cars have serious problems with their suspensions and chassis and are beginning to queue up at a welder shop next to the petrol station.
With the help of a local who speaks a little English we reach it a few minutes later and with his help we manage to get the receptionist to give us a room. We soon see other rally participants who are in trouble and who’ve had our same idea slowly trickling in and together we all have a sumptuous Mongolian meal.