How to use a GPS in the Gobi Desert

** Gobi Desert - Day Two **

The next morning, we on the road by nine. I kept dosing off in the truck, but would get jerked awake every few minutes by a bump in the road. I forgot to mention that there are no paved roads in the Gobi. Just barely-there tracks in the dirt. So, while it was only a 500km drive to Bugin Tsav, it took us two days and 14 hours to drive that distance. Apparently, we did it in record time. It can sometimes take three days to get where we needed to go. But Mongol is a Nascar driver. He goes fast but knows when to slow down and navigate around the tough bits of road. I felt lucky to have him because he’s an extremely skilled driver who knows the Gobi inside out. You would not want to be driving out here with just anyone. The tracks are not that defined and it would be easy to get lost in the great desert abyss.

That said, we did have to stop to talk to a nomadic herder to find out what was the best road to take to Bugin Tsav. Bugin Tsav is a huge area and there is a main road (a.k.a. deeper track marks in the dirt) -- it went too far south of where we wanted to end up. Had we had taken the main road, it would have added an extra 100kms to our day. The nomad drew us a map (which looked like cave etchings to me). But Mongel could read it and that was all that mattered. We made it to the Bugin Tsav area by 3pm that day. But, where were the paleontologists? This was the only time I got stressed out during my trip in the Gobi. Azaa pulls out the GPS she borrowed from Nomadic Expeditions (that’s the company that helped me organize this trip). Then she hands it to me and says, “Do you know how to use this? Because I don’t.”

Shit.

I’ve only used the GPS on my iPhone, which is dummy-proof. This gadget was way more advanced. It had a zillion different options – like “geological landmarks” and “historical sites.” All I wanted to do was plug in the co-ordinates of the site the paleontologists had sent me. And the little fucker wouldn’t let me do it. My basic request was too simplistic for this piece of shitty technology.

I did, however, manage to find the “Where am I?” button, which told us where we were. That was good because we realized we were not that far from the site. Or so we thought. After 30 minutes of driving west and me fiddling with the piece-of-shit GPS, I found an arrow that I could manually move around the map on the GPS. As I moved it, the co-ordinates on the map would change. I moved the arrow to the spot where we wanted to go, locked it in and created a route from where we were. Thank god.

We were about point-eight degrees east and a few degrees south of where were wanted to go. But we soon realized that was a 40 mile drive (yes the GPS mapped in miles – fucker!). 40 miles = two hours when you are trying to veer around sand dunes, hills and hoodoos. Bugin Tsav was the most treacherous drive of the entire trip. At this point, I think the heat was getting to me and my neck was starting to hurt from being whip-lashed around in the backseat of truck (Azaa and I took turns sitting in the front seat. So I was only car-sick half the time).

I got tired of holding the GPS and being the backseat driver, so I handed it over to Azaa who took charge. After an hour, I was pretty sure we’d never find the site and I’d be lost in Bugin Tsav forever. This is because each time we crested a hill, the landscape looked exactly the same: remote and not a single tent in site. I must have dozed off for a bit, because when we woke up, I was looking at a camp site! A huge wave of relief swept over me. Orange, yellow, red and green tents spotted the mountain in front of us. We pulled up next to a giant army truck (which is used to transport the heavy fossils). We stepped out and a bunch of Mongolians greeted us. I think I hugged one. They ushered us into a big tent where they ate all their meals, and fed us wagon wheels and tea. But the best part was when someone handed me an ICE COLD coke. That right. They had a fridge – and electricity – at this camp. They had brought generators to power the tools the paleontologists used to remove fossils from hard rock. I was in heaven. A cold coke on the hottest, dustiest day of my life. And it was in a can. You all know how I feel about canned coke. Absolute bliss.

Phil and Eva were still out digging, so I waited inside the big tent with my tape recorder close by. I wanted to catch the moment on tape when we first met. I heard some trucks motoring in the distance. I ran outside to see a 4-man camera crew jump out of the truck. They were from London, England and doing a story about “dinosaur gangs” – Phil Currie’s theory that T-Rex actually hunted in large groups, or gangs, and was not a solo fighter (which is the current and long-standing belief).

Not long after, a green van pulled up the mountain and out came Phillip and Eva. When they saw me, their eyes lit up. Eva said, “Oh my god, you made it!” Apparently, they all didn’t think I’d make it by August 31. Like I said, we made good time -- all thanks to Mongol! Some of the other paleontologist (from the US) told me I was "really brave" to have come all the way out here on my own. No kidding. We set up our yellow North Face tents and went to bed early. It had been a LONG day.

Gobi Desert - Day One

It’s 3:30 in the morning. Thank god I am still jetlag. My taxi driver helped me carry my garbage bag full of comfort food and one very heavy backpack (containing very few clothes but a laptop and 40 double A batteries for my power-sucking radio equipment) down the three flights of stairs to the ground floor of the apartment building where my hostel is located. The driver then drove over a curb and a sidewalk, then through teeth-gritting narrow alleyways to pick up my guide, Azaa. She is a warm and friendly English teacher during the year and a Gobi tour guide in the summer. We made small-talk as we proceeded to the airport. At the airport, Azaa took my passport and got us our boarding passes for the domestic flight we were about to board to Dalazadgad. I was charged about $20 US for my over-weight baggage (the limit is 20kg…that’s 15kg for checked luggage and 5kg for carry-on). They have to very careful with weight because the plane is very small. Propeller-style plane.

It was still pitch-back when we boarded the plane. The flight was short and pleasant. I didn’t sleep a wink despite my two hours of sleep the night before. I was too excited. We landed at sunrise in Dalanzadgad – which is the “gateway” to the Gobi Desert. It’s the largest town in the area and your last stop to by quality toilet paper. Upon arrival, I met “Mongol” – our lead driver for the trip. He speaks little English, but it didn’t matter. His facial expressions and hand gestures were easy to understand. And one of the funniest things on the trip was the fact that Mongol always talked to me like I was fluent in Mongolian. He’d look me in the eye and just blab away, smiling and laughing. He never bothered asking Azaa to translate. He always talked directly to me. In Mongolian.

It was just after 7:00 a.m. when we got our bags off the plane and got in Mongol’s truck. We had to buy seven days worth of food before we left Dalazadgad, but the stores don’t open until ten. So, Mongol took us to his ger to kill some time. He lived in a wooden-fenced community. It looked a lot like an African ghetto, but a lot cleaner. When we arrived at his ger, I did not get out of the jeep right away. I was on the lookout for a dog or dogs. Most of the mutts in Mongolia are rabid, and I wasn’t about to start off my journey with a bite. We were dog free and led into Mongol’s ger for more salt milk tea (ugghh). This batch wasn’t as awful as the first round. I was, however, offered some yogurt treats. Little morsels of sourness.
Gag.

Azaa ate my yogurt treat and I sat in a chair, while Mongol’s two daughters (seven and 13-years old) stared at me. The little one was less shy and started doing back-bends for me. Apparently, her aunt is a contortionist. I left the ger to go back to jeep and take a nap. Two minutes later, the curious seven-year old was in the front seat watching me. I decided this was a good time to reach into my pack and pull out a shiny red pencil with the word “Canada” etched into it. My CBC colleague, Lisa Robinson, did some research and bought some little tourist gifts for me to give children in Mongolia. I also gave her a “Calgary” postcard. Then we went and found her older sister and gave her the same little trinkets. They were thrilled and now, my best friends. We hung out in the truck. I gave them Tolberone and their faces melted in delight faster than the chocolate.

Then me and the girls did a photo shoot. I had them pose in front of their blue-tin shed, a stack of tires and their ger. They loved every minute of it. It was good practice for me too, since I was still getting the hang of the digital SLR camera my dad lent me. It was still early morning, so the light was fantastic. Then, their baby cousin (maybe three-years old) came out of another ger half-naked. (Yes, he is a boy, even though he has long-haired tied up in a pony-tail!) He squealed and laughed as we towed him around in his little cart.

Then I found my jump-rope. I brought it for exercise, but had yet to use it. We took turns skipping, but little cousin was the most excited about the new toy. He whipped it around and threw it around. His smile never once left his face. It was time to go, but like a good boy, he returned the rope to me and hugged my leg goodbye.

Azaa, Mongol and I drove to town and went food shopping. We had to go to about five stores to find everything, Tea, bottled-water, toilet paper (which we almost forgot! Oy vey, can you imagine?) rice, pasta, instant noodle bowls, cookies, canned vegetables, canned meat (for the Mongolians – I did not want to even try the stuff) and smoked sausage. We also stopped at the outdoor market and bought some potatoes, onions and watermelon (which are grown in nearby town called Bulgan). It was funny because the two drivers had this concerned look on their face as Azaa and I were shopping for their food. I think they were worried we were only going to buy vegetables. These men LOVE their meat. Most Mongolians eat meat at every meal. There is a saying here that “goats eat grass, men eat meat.”All together, I spent about $200 CAN on all our food for seven days, which I thought was pretty darn good. I was feeding four people (myself, Mongol, Azaa and the second driver – did I mention I had to hire a second driver and second car for my trip to the Western Gobi? The area is so remote that if I was to rely on one car and it broke down, I could be stuck for two days).

At noon, we met up with our second driver (whose name I still can’t pronounce so I am just going to call him “the other driver”) and began our journey to Bugin Tsav. This is the area where I was going to meet Alberta paleontologists and husand-wife duo, Philip Currie and Eva Kopplehus.

Let me just begin by saying that it was extremely hot and dry my first day in the Gobi. I must have drank 5 litres of water that day. Within two hours on the road, I felt like a sinus infection from all the dust in the air. I actually wet a Kleenex and draped it over my face to bring some moisture into my nose and lungs.

The drive was gorgeous, to say the least. It began with big open plains with very little vegetation. After that, the landscape changed every five minutes. Suddenly their were shrubs everywhere, some of them were electric green in colour! Then the ground turned sandy and we were dodging spiky trees and bushes. We ended up camping that night against some barren brown hills (that look a lot like the mountains in Jordan) , where the ground was covered in smooth, black stones. We couldn’t set up our tents because the Gobi wind was so strong that evening and it was getting dark. We had driven later than expected since we started driving later than expected. So, we quickly boiled some water, ate our noodle bowls and camped in the flatbed of the trucks. It was very hot and I had to sleep next to Azaa, who snored all night. I couldn’t find my earplugs in the dark. So I just closed my eyes and let my body rest.

Impromptu visit to countryside

My second day in UB, I went to Café Amserdam – a hangout for foreigners and expats in the city. The café serves “European-style” food (that’s what the Mongolians call Western cuisine). What it means is you can order Illy coffee. Thank god. I eagerly ordered an Americano, my first non-instant cup of java since I boarded Air Korea from Vancouver to Seoul.

And you can’t have a real cup of Italian coffee without an Italian sandwich. They serve paninis at Café Amsterdam, so I ordered a salami and cheese one. Oh, the sweet taste of SEASONED meat (Mongolians love their meat but they can’t handle too much spice, so everything needs to be generously doused in black pepper).

While I inhaled my panini, Bolor (pronounced “bowl-dra”), talked to me about her work. Bolor is the Mongolian paleontologist who I’m doing a story about for Dispatches in the Gobi Desert from September 7 - 10. She’s 35-years old and one of the youngest paleontologists in Mongolia (She was born and raised in Mongolia, but educated in the US. She now lives in NYC, but spends every summer in Mongolia). It seems the older, Russian-trained Mongolian paleontologists didn’t do a very good job passing on the torch. That’s Bolor’s goal. To get Mongolian youth interested in dinosaurs so they will be a new generation of Monogolian paleontologists to promote and protect their country’s fossils.

After lunch, Bolor’s brother showed up to take her to the country to see her horse. He asked me if I wanted to come. I said sure, I had the whole day free. Next thing I know, I was in a Japanese jeep dodging traffic in UB. Ten minutes out of the city, we were in another world. Big sky (like Alberta). Green rolling steppes (much like Alberta’s Foothills). A sheep here. A few goats over there. The road was very bumpy (a prelude to my “adventures in dirt-road travel” in the Gobi). 30 minutes later, we pulled up to a ger (That’s the Mongolian word for a circular, felt tent. In Canada, we call them “yurts” but if you call them that in Mongolian you may get your teeth punched in. “Yurt” is the Russian word for “ger” and the Mongolians hate the Russians. That whole Soviet-era thing.)

FIRST COURSE: As soon as I got out of the jeep, I was ushered inside the ger and served a tall glass of fermented mair’s milk. You have to taste anything that is served to you in a ger in the countryside or else you’ll insult the family. So I tried it. Not too bad, tasted like sour vodka. But I knew not to take more than a sip because if you’re not used to drinking the mair’s milk it will make you sick.

SECOND COURSE: Salted milk tea. That tickled my gag reflex. I don’t know if you know my history with dairy products, but I only started eating cheese in 2005 and I still can’t drink milk unless it’s cooked in something, like oatmeal. So the salted milk tea has not been easy to get used to. Even if all I have to do is take a sip.

After Bolor and her brother finish their beverages, we went outside and met her horse. She bought a horse but had never seen it. It was just born in the spring and was the most robust of all the colts. We snapped some photos, then took off back to the UB. On the way home, we got stuck behind a never-ending freight train (just like we do in Southern Alberta!).

They dropped me off at my hostel in downtown UB around 6pm. I grabbed my backpack and walked down to the “State Department Store” to buy some groceries before I went to the Gobi. Important things. Like Apple Jacks.

I noticed it was getting dark and I didn’t want to walk back to my hostel alone, so I texted another journalist I had met at the hostel to see if he wanted to have coffee at – you guessed it – Café Amsterdam. We met up around 8pm. At 9pm, he walked me back to my hostel. On the way back, we were harassed by street kids. They’re harmless, but nonetheless, I was glad to have a six-foot two tall white guy walking next to me.

I went back to my hostel room and packed my bags. My flight was at 5:00 a.m. which meant my taxi was picking me up at 3:30 the next morning. I didn’t get to bed until 11:00 p.m. and I was up at two the next morning to take my “last shower” before seven days of camping in the sandy and dusty Gobi Desert.

First impressions of Ulaanbaatar

1) I was told most people here speak English. They don't. Well, the teenagers do, but they are not the ones selling me bottled water. So, to pay for things, people show me the price on a calculator.

2) The language sounds like a cross between Chinese and Russian. The writing looks that way too. Thus, my background in Spanish is useless.

3) For a foodie like myself, the cuisine here is pretty disappointing. Bland soups. Rice with overcooked vegetables meat (what kind of meat, I'm not sure). I am pretty much a vegetarian now except I did find a European cafe that sells delicious salami baguettes. Breakfast is included at the hostel and it's just toast and tea, which is doing wonders for my growling stomache. Did I mention that I am in the CAPITAL city? God only knows what I will be eating when I travel to rural Mongolia. Thank god I brought oodles of freeze-dried soups and cliff bars. I expect to lose a fair bit of weight here, which I will quickly gain back when I start stuffing myself with Chinese dumplings in Beijing next month.

4) The PEOPLE here are really nice and not very pushy or loud. It's also not as crowded as I thought it would be. I went out to meet the people who put together my expedition to the Gobi desert (the company is called Nomadic Expeditions). They were great and made me feel much more secure about venturing out into such a remote area. I also met my guide "Azaa" who speaks perfect English and has a very friendly face. I think we'll get along just fine.

5) Today I am meeting "Bolor," the Mongolian paleontologist who will be doing a workshop and field trip with Nomadic children next month to teach them about dinosaur fossils and why they should not steal them. I will collecting tape from her field trip in the Gobi right after returning from another -- more remote -- region of the Gobi to interview Dr. Currie from the Tyrell Museum. Dr. Currie will show me some sites where dinosaur bones have been poached.

6) It's really cold here. Mom, thanks for making me take my down jacket.

7) The capital city of Ulaanbaatar looks like the post-communist satellite that it is. Run-down buildings and road, faded signs and garbage everywhere. But Ulaanbaatar isn't why people come to Mongolia. The travellers I have met so far are all here to see the vast, open country and take in a piece of the world that is still much like it was thousands of years ago.

8) That said, I am not buying a horse.

9) I am carrying 20 pounds of equipment and don't regret bringing a single thing! I have already used my laptop extensively, and expect to go through all 40 of my Double A batteries by the time I'm done here.