Gobi Desert Greetings

While the terrain down in the south of China where I've lived for years was very similar from place to place with the occasional mountain popping out on the horizon, the terrain here in Inner Mongolia is wild. You'll be in the middle of the plains for hours and suddenly there are mountains rising high above you only to be followed behind by a desert. That's why Adam and I were excited to find that the tour we had chosen took advantage of the varying terrain.

After spending the night drinking and laughing around a poop fire and sleeping in our yurt (seriously one of the coziest places I have ever slept!), we boarded our trusty bus and headed out of the grasslands, passed the big city, left the mountains in the dust, and stepped out in the Gobi Desert.

The Gobi Desert spans across both China and Mongolia. In Chinese it is referred to as 戈壁 (Gebi) and in Mongolian, it is Говь or "Gevi." The Gobi Desert is the fifth largest desert in the world and the largest one in Asia at 500,000 square miles. It is both sandy and rocky and it tends to be a very cold desert (I know! I assumed all deserts were hot too... until I was freezing in one!)

We were in the part of the desert called Ordos Desert. You can see the city of Hohhot to the northeast of us.

The Gobi Desert is the home of many different species despite the harsh climate including gazelles, Mongolian wild ass, and sometimes even snow leopards, wolves, and brown bears! And of course, a desert would be incomplete without camels. 

There are two species of camel in the world. The one humped dromedary camel, also known as the Arabian camel, is from (you guessed it!) the Arabian Peninsula and is found all through Northern Africa today.  The camels found in Inner Mongolia are known as Bactrian camels and are only found in small pockets in Central Asia. They are considered critically endangered in the wild and are almost entirely domesticated today. 

The Bactrian camel population VS. the Arabian camel population.

Now it's been a dream of mine ever since I was a little girl with hopes of being an Egyptologist to ride a camel through the desert. Fourteen years in the making, you can be darn sure I was going to get on the back of a camel while living in the middle of the Gobi Desert. 

After putting on unnecessary protective covers for our shoes, we hopped into a large (for lack of a better word), sand dune rover (it almost resembled those amphibian trucks that can enter into the water on those super touristy Duck Tours). The driver with no fear of hydroplaning (or the sandy equivalent), zoomed down the road and up and over the dunes. As we traveled further from our bus and deeper into the desert all vegetation seemed to vanish and nothing but golden rolling sand dunes surrounded us for as far as we could see. 

We arrived at a little oasis where we were greeted by our own little herd of camels. I was the first to hop up on a camel's back and I quickly dubbed him Clyde. 

Fun fact: when camels stand up with you on their back, it is terrifying. You lean forward and then fall back, all the while with this massive creature beneath you. But my heart quickly stopped pounding from fear and started beating for the incredible views I could see from Clyde's back. 

Cross off #103 from My Life List! 

Following behind in a perfect little line (except for Clyde who didn't like waiting his turn), we wandered through the desert. The wind was brutal and the sand got everywhere (seriously, I am still finding it, three showers later) but the relaxed amble of the camels and the wave-like patterns in the sand were incredible. 

I've always had a love for horses (I think many girls go through a stage in their younger years where they dream of owning a horse before they actually realize the cost behind it) but for some reason, I've found that my love for riding a camel runs far deeper than riding a horse (it could be that the horse's trot was merciless on my bottom and the camel's slow stroll pitied my bum). You can see why for thousands of years different people in different parts of the world have chosen the camel as their companion through the harshness of the desert. 

Being a girl from Buffalo, New York, I am very much familiar with sledding. I had my Pocahontas sled growing up that I would take down to the river with my mom and my brother. It was wet. It was cold. It was white. 

If you can sled down a hill in the snow, why not try it in the sand too?

Taking one of the super beat up, broken, and completely falling apart "sleds" one by one each of us conquered the dunes of the Gobi Desert. Standing at the very top, it's a bit intimidating. You see how steep the hill is. The wind beats at your back, threatening to push you over before you're ready. But you know how it goes--when in Rome! 

I only managed to slide down twice because once down, we had to climb back up the hill. It sounded easy but about halfway up, myself and a young French girl just turned and looked at each other and decided that right there on the dune was a perfect place to die. 

It's just incredible seeing sights like this--they belong in books or movies or your imagination. How can they be real? How can you touch them? Hear them? Smell them? As I push myself down the sand dune, I couldn't help but feel like Rey on Jakku from The Force Awakens (sorry for the major nerd out but it's true!). 

I can see the similarity.

While the grasslands were beautiful, it is the desert that I would demand that everyone gets to see at least once in their lifetime--to see that what is harsh can also be beautiful and life changing. 

Until Next Time,
Amanda

PS: Happy Hump Day!! See what I did there? ;)
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