The Mongolia Diaries: Day Thirteen

I was the first one up and was shocked at how cold it was. My phone said it was 4°C outside. Brrrrr! We had locked our ger door overnight and around 6:00AM someone was trying to come inside. We later learned that it was one of the workers who wanted to restart our wood burning heater so it wasn't too cold when we got out of bed.

Since I was the first one up, I attempted to make a fire but failed miserably. Apparently, I have forgotten all of my fire making skills from back in my camping days. One of the Australian girls could see I was struggling so she came over to help. It took some time but she got it up and going!

Breakfast, which were yummy omelettes, was served in our ger. We would be staying for two nights at the lake and the plan was to hike to an extinct volcano called Khorgo. Our guide said we would be on our own for the hike. She told us to give her some time as she would be making meat filled pastries for us to take on our hike. They were delicious!

White Lake with Frog Rock in the distance

We set an 11:00AM departure time so I went for a walk along one side of the Terkhiin Tsagaan Lake to a rock called Frog Rock. I saw horses, yaks and some lovely magpies along the way. I was contemplating walking around the lake but Google Maps said it was 16KM and I didn't know if there was a trail or not.

At Frog Rock, I climbed up and around it and noticed a bunch of Mongolians by a little beach on the backside of the rock. There were four of them in the water screaming with delight or perhaps at the icy coldness of the lake!

There was a small community on this side of the lake with a few different tourist camps. There were a few cafes/restaurants and a couple of very tiny stores in the area. One could easily vacation here for a week or so and probably be able to get everything they would need. This place was quite different from anywhere else we'd been so far as we were always very isolated in the other locations with nothing around for miles and miles.

I noticed that there were no water activities going on in the lake. I wasn't sure if it was because the lake was so cold but there weren't even any boats on the water. Strange.

When I got back to our set of gers, I went to check in on our lunch and saw that our driver had the van in pieces. He looked a little under the weather. The German girls had left both the driver and the guide a tip and I did notice that our driver had purchased a big bottle of Vodka and some specialty chocolate in the village before coming to the lake. My guide said that him and his friends had spent the night drinking! Ha!

Lunch was ready and we were given individual bags with four meat filled pastries each. The Australian girls requested ketchup and brought a bottle with them. One of my recordings was about ketchup. With every meal, we were offered ketchup. Everyone put ketchup on everything. I didn't put ketchup on anything because ketchup is kind of gross and not meant for pasta or rice or noodles. My group asked for ketchup and put it on all of their meals before trying them. I know Mongolia isn't known for tasty food but I didn't think it was so terrible that each meal needed to be doused in ketchup.

Anyway, away we went on our hike. I made the assumption that I would lose the group at some point based on them liking to run through things. Our directions were to find a cave and head into the forest and follow the rocks. I was the only one with service on my phone so the group stayed close to me!

The volcanic rocks leading to Khorgo Mountain

The cave was a small hole in the ground. There were people there upon arrival, so we took a miss of the cave and trekked it into the forest. We came across another set of rocks which was showing as another cave on Google Maps. We then came to the volcanic rocks that our guide must have been talking about. We walked over these rocks for at least a half hour. The group was quite spread out at this point trying to find the best way across the rocks. I feared someone was going to turn an ankle.

We eventually came to a pathway that had come from the road. There were a number of people using it. We took the scenic route, I guess! This trail led us up the mountain to a wonderful crater. We were able to walk all the way around the top of the crater and we sat up there and had some lunch and enjoyed the views! I was thankful we were finally able to take some time to relax at one of the attractions!

We opted for a different route back to avoid walking over those rocks again. The trail eventually led us out to the road and to the underground cave. The cave was small and claustrophobic-looking. I neglected to go in! The Australian girls also took a miss. The French guy went in and had a bit of trouble getting himself out. Ha!

The hike ended up being about 10KM or so with an elevation of 2,200m. The lake was sitting at 2,080m according to the compass on my phone.

When we got back, I paid 5,000 Tugrik for a shower! It was wonderful! It was my third and last shower on this tour of Mongolia!

The rest of the day was uneventful. We relaxed, drank some beer and played cards. We would be up for another long day of driving the following day as we started on the journey back to the big city of Ulaanbaatar.

One thing I noted on my recorded journal was that the guide kept playing the same music over and over and over in the car. Some of the songs were OK and I actually really liked a few of them but by day nine it was like ... ugh ... do we have any other music we could possibly listen to?

We went to bed early that night as we had a fairly early departure time for our final destination of this tour. The time was going quick but I was kind of ready to not be on tour anymore!