The Mongolia Diaries: Day Nine

Our location

We were up early and served breakfast at 9:00AM. We had 180KM to drive as we were making our way to a place called the Flaming Cliffs or Bayanzag. It was a quick drive over! This place is on the edge of the Gobi Gurvansaikhan National Park and it was officially our last day in the Gobi Desert. The Flaming Cliffs are awesome and known for having yielded some of the world's famous dinosaur fossils.

On our way to the Flaming Cliffs, we stopped in a very small village where we were able to grab a shower! It was the same price as the last shower at 3,000 Tugrik but this one had very little water pressure. Either way, it was lovely to feel water on my skin and get all of that Gobi sand out of my hair. My head was so itchy!

We were staying in some gers that belonged to our tour company, Golden Gobi. We were able to walk to the cliffs from our ger. We were told that it was a 2 - 3KM walk over but I thought that may have been false. It took me an hour or so to get to the top of the cliffs though I did dawdle for most of the walk. The sun was much hotter than I thought it would be and I didn't bring enough water for the walk. There were people selling souvenirs at the entrance but none of them sold drinks.

The Flaming Cliffs in Mongolia

I ended up leaving without my group as they were aiming to be there for sunset. I feared they would rush me through the walk and the cliffs, so I decided to take off by myself so I could enjoy things at my own pace. The plan was to meet them there but the cliffs are massive. Upon arrival, I knew we weren't going to find one another. One can go down into the cliffs or walk along the top. My initial thought was to go down into the cliffs but then I noticed people in the distance walking along the tops of the cliff so I made the long journey around to go where the majority of people seemed to be.

As the sun was setting, I decided to head back to my gers so that I didn't get lost. I was out of water, had no food and I was alone. I knew it would take me at least an hour to get back to the gers which were kilometers away in a dark, open field with not much else around. There was a big, fancy tourist camp to the far left, a set of gers in the middle and another set of gers to the far right. I was pretty sure my gers were the ones in the middle but I wasn't 100% sure.

On the walk back, I kept losing sight of the gers I was walking to. If the land slanted down slightly they were gone and I had to wait until there was a slight incline to get them back in my sight. I recorded my daily journal on the way back and was laughing about the ridiculousness of this vast field and me being lost in Mongolia! I wondered if I was heading to the right place and if I wasn't, would someone come and rescue me. There were no roads, so it wasn't like I could stand on the side of the road and flag someone down!

I arrived back to the correct set of gers just before dark and noticed my group wasn't back yet. Our driver left in the van to find them! We had a late dinner and I decided to retire early. We would be heading to Central Mongolia the following day and were apparently in for a big day (or two) of driving! It was nice to have a break and I wasn't sure I was ready for a full day in that van again! I had read over and over again before coming to Mongolia not to underestimate the driving. I was beginning to see what those reviews meant! It was absolutely worth it but we were talking about hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of kilometers along bumpy, dirt roads. Little did I know what we'd be getting into the following day! Ha! The bumpy, dirt roads were nothing!