We logged a few miles to a city called Kohvd. There was an open air market that we really wanted to walk through. So we did. I got myself an ice cream cone but only after I consummated the purchase did I realize that it was going to be made of goat’s milk. I reluctantly tasted it. Yup, goat. I ate as much of it as I could before it slipped out of my hand into a garbage.
These roads are unbelievable. I mean, I’ve seen some pretty bad roads that compare with these for short stretches but this is a rocky, washboard, hard and rutted road that apparently goes for the next 1,000 miles. That’s no exaggeration by the way. 1,000 miles to Ulaanbataar.
We got started as early as we have yet and managed to punch out 300 miles. It came at the expense of three tires though. And when we get a flat, if we don’t catch it right away, the tire gets ripped to bits. Two of our tires today were total losses, one of which was the most destroyed tire I’ve ever seen. I’ll try to get a picture of it up here.
We also had a slow leak in one tire and a bubble on the sidewall of another. We carry two spares per Tracker, so we were down to the end.
We decided we were having tire pressure problems due to changes in elevation and temperature. It took us a while to get things regulated, but we think we have things under control after today’s expensive lessons – slower speeds and check air pressure as frequently as we change drivers.
As amazingly harsh as the driving is, the scenery here is as amazingly pleasant. It’s as free range as you could imagine. There really are no trees, but there are flats, hills and some mountains and it seems like they all grow green grass. The herders push their herds of goats, horses, camels, yaks and cattle around the area all day long and the animals just graze like they don’t have a care. The countryside is, for lack of a better word, big. The sky is big, the grasslands are big, the hills are big and they all just seem to go on and on. The distance between fuel stops is also big, so we have to carry some extra jerry cans full of fuel in our vehicles and we have to have a supply of water and food in case we have a problem.
Time is getting tight for us. In order to make our flight we really can’t afford to have problems like this, but problems like this are almost a certainty for us. It was a wild day and we have to make it about 50 miles tomorrow to the next city with no problems where we’ll get our spares fixed up. Ken finished our day off strong by building a fire for us.
What did you build the fire out of? Yak chips?