Mongolian Card Games

** Gobi Desert - Day Three **

The next morning, I met Phil and Eva in the main camp area with Azaa and Mongol and we drove to one of the sites they were working on. They were reconstructing the crest of a duck-billed dinosaur. It had been smashed to pieces when some fossil poachers vandalized the site. It was a very hot and windy day, too windy for me to record most of the time. But that’s the Gobi for you. Big wind. In fact, the wind is so strong that it has smoothed out most of the pebbles in the area. I collected a few of them. When the wind did finally settle down, I recorded Phil for about an hour, but for the most part, I spent the day exploring the beautiful area by foot. I found a sheep’s skull and leg, but no big fossils.

Also, the British camera crew was doing its last day of filming and trying to its final shots, so I left the dig site around noon with Azaa and Mongol to go back to our campsite. We had lunch and then they taught me a Mongolian card game. Once I got the hang of it I was addicted. I felt this card game was something that bonded me with the two drivers who didn’t speak English. Luckily, you don’t have to know the same language to play a card game.

Between 5:00 - 6:00 p.m., all the paleontologists began to return from their various dig site. I went to greet them and ended up being offered an ice-cold beer (score!). Then I went into the big “meal” tent to chat with Phil. I noticed something scurrying around. At first, I thought it was a giant rat and jumped onto my chair and yelled to Phil, “What the fuck is that!” He walked over to it to take a closer look and said, “WOW, it’s a hedgehog!” He ran outside and called all the other paleontologists inside to have a look. They all went crazy and one of them touched the hedgehog and it curled up into a ball. Just like I’d seen in cartoons! I was so awesome to see one live and I gently touched its needles. Unfortunately, my camera was not around to capture all the action!