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Feature / Asia / Mongolia / Gobi desert

Crossing the Gobi Desert / Patrick Hutton

By Globalista

The idea was simple. We travel to the Outer Mongolian city of Altai, buy three Bactrian camels and cross the Gobi Desert to Dalanzadgad. How difficult could that be? In late August we found out. Neither my friend Richard nor I had seen a Bactrian camel before, let alone owned a small herd of the fluffy beasts. Each camel weighed 500kg and towered eight and a half feet tall. With a moment of undeserved confidence we christened them Frank, Humphrey and Optimus Prime (who, being the largest, frightened us the most). We paid a nomadic family eight hundred thousand tögrög (£400) per camel plus saddle, and, with our toothless and generally intoxicated herdsman Utsil, set off on our way.

The first thing that struck us was how extraordinarily uncomfortable the camels wereto ride. After the first half-day Richard and I dismounted to walk. After the first two days our camel handling confidence was sky high; we could command and control our beasts for most occasions. Smugly and naively we thought our skills were on apar with Utsil’s. We were wrong. Usually in a moment of intense boredom, having walked for hours in the desert sun, the camel would suddenly provide a few short moments of erratic vitality that would truly terrify us.

On the third day, a supply sack dropped off Frank, who, being our youngest and only un-castrated camel, proceeded to go psychotic, transforming into a particularly violent buckaroo. Utsil was thrown headlong towards the ground but got his foot caught in a stirrup so he was suspended upside down and draped over Frank’s side as the camel sprinted towards Humphrey and Optimus. Luckily Utsil slipped off but Frank continued pelting towards the two petrified camels ridden by Richard and I. Humphrey and Optimus scattered at an incredible velocity, scared at the prospect of being pummeled (a fear we humans shared as well). It took a while for order tobe restored but when it did, we slipped Utsil a few codeine tablets for his resulting headache. I had immense respect for him not throwing the towel in then and there and we couldn’t even converse, as Richard and I don’t speak the Mongolian language.

Mongolia is a nation the size of Western Europe with a population of 2.5 million (less than Ireland). We came across Nomadic families every couple of days who were delighted and intrigued to witness two smelly Englishmen and Utsil materialize from the desert. We’d be practically force fed homemade ‘sheep vodka’ and ‘Arul’, a horrible tasting curd made from camel milk that we’d painfully eat, as it would be most ‘un-British’ not to.

That families thrive in the middle of the desert is a feat of human endurance. Winter sees arctic temperatures with summer a sweltering +40 degrees. A few times, we witnessed families assembling their tent homes (‘gers’) in new areas of pasture. Their herds are out of human contact for many months while grazing and therefore aren’t tame. On sight of Frank, Humphrey and Optimus they’d become aggressive and try scaring us off. Apart from herdsman’s livestock, there wasn’t that much in the way of wildlife. Frequently we’d pass carcasses with gleaming white bones poking through deteriorating flesh or a bloated decomposing cow. Very occasionally, a flash of snake would pass by.

With such vast, pebbly, flatness it was difficult not to be disheartened at the slow change in scenery. Mountains in the distance generally took two days to reach and our sense of scale became skewed. The night was incredibly cold, and ice would sometimes form on the equipment, while the jet black sky was illuminated by a stunning array of stars. Our antiquated soviet maps were relatively good, listing wells, dirt tracks and the very occasional re-supply village. However at a 1:200,000 scale, they weren’t always accurate, once leading us up a small peak to discover a vast canyon of cement-like sand dunes. It hadn’t been on the map and took hours to walk around, although we were awestruck at its sheer desolate and barren beauty.

Eventually both human and camel injuries occurred. Richard and I had ankle injuries, repetitive strain injuries and eye infections, while the camels suffered rope burns, foot problems and weight loss. Only Utsil, who rode the whole distance, escaped injury. Richard and I would only ride either Humphrey or Optimus, the two castrated and older camels that were easier to handle. Most of the time the two of us would walk for four hours in the morning, have lunch, and ride for three hours in the afternoon. When we noticed how weak the camels had become though, we walked the rest of the way to Dalanzadgad and left the older camels to just carry the supplies.

As the expedition drew to a close Richard and I had mixed feelings about coming into Dalanzadgad. The prospect of sleeping on a bed and eating food that didn’t contain desert grit was quite appealing but we were going to miss our three camels and Utsil. Originally Utsil had been told that we would pay him eight USD per day but as he did a sterling job, we gave him the three camels as payment along with a tip of 70 USD. He was quite touched by the gesture and gave us a bottle of vodka, which was the highest form of thanks from Utsil!

We learnt a lot from crossing the Gobi on Bactrian camels and it’s totally possible for any determined individual to repeat the trip. Richard and I both had previous expedition experience but were essentially two average guys in our early twenties, looking for adventure with a budget of £3000 each. People travel with a similar amount of money around Southeast Asia for a few weeks: why not do something different?