Ending Point: N48°28 E90°36
Distance Traveled: 104.0 miles
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Charla and Chase woke up as the sun was beginning to illuminate the amazing landscapes around our camp. Unfortunately, we are early risers, and we knew that it would take a long time for all of the other teams to get prepared to leave; taking advantage of this extra time, and following up on something he’d wanted to do for weeks, Chase started walking away from camp. Our camp was surrounded by large hills or small mountains, however you wish to describe them, and Chase wanted to climb one. He picked one nearby, and just started climbing; it was gradual at first, but the top third of the mountain involved quite a scramble. After stopping to catch his breath a couple times he completed the final scramble up the hill, and was able to look around and enjoy the surroundings. Looking back the way we had come last night, Chase could still see the border area structures and further could see Siberia’s snow-capped peaks to the north. In the other direction, he could see the road we were going to take today winding into the distance before passing behind more hills; the road passed a couple lakes and a few yurts before it disappeared. And, by looking back where he had just climbed, he could see his camp very small below him. However, the most magical sight was looking over the other side of the mountain: on the other side of the mountain there were no structures, no major roads, and few indications that other humans had ever set foot on that steppe before. It was beautiful. Chase, alone and on top of the hill, sat and breathed it all in for a few minutes. Eventually he could see movement in camp, and he certainly didn’t want to miss breakfast, so he gathered his thoughts and his camera, placed one more stone on the cairn on top of the hill, and descended back to camp, picking wildflowers for Charla has he went. Unfortunately for Team Turnagain, the entire day didn’t match that magical feel. We started having exhaust problems back in Kazakhstan, but today was the day when an ill-placed rock actually tore the exhaust pipe off the engine. Oh no! Our first idea was simply to break the exhaust completely off the car right there, but of course it wouldn’t be that easy; the exhaust pipe passed over the rear axle on its way to the muffler, which meant we couldn’t remove it from the front or the rear. Luckily Daniel, a Norwegian solo-driver of team Mongol Viking whom we’d met earlier in the day, had some metal wire that we used to tie the exhaust to the underbody. Our thought was that if we could make it to the next town we could find a mechanic who could cut the exhaust from the muffler, thus allowing us to remove them in two pieces. It was a great plan, until the wire job only held for approximately forty or fifty feet before we were back on the side of the road. Now understanding that we needed some type of roadside fix, we had to start getting creative. (It’s what the Mongol Rally is all about!) Daniel brought a crowbar out from the back of his Alto, and with a serious amount of effort we were finally able to use the crowbar to break the weld connecting the exhaust and the muffler. Once the weld was finally broken and we could remove both pieces separately, it was time to get back on the road. We had suffered an hour delay, but at least it was in a beautiful location! Throughout the afternoon we had been slowly but steadily gaining elevation, and when we finally stopped for the night we were well and truly in the mountains. Our camp was under two beautifully snow-capped peaks, and the views all around were spectacular. The only problem with our camp, though, was that temperatures tend to get a little chilly when you’re at over 8,000 feet elevation. In our not-very-thorough planning, we had pictured Mongolia to be full of deserts and warm temperatures, and we were woefully ill-prepared for a night that would see ice forming on the outside of the tent. We didn’t all hang out around camp as much as usual, since it was much warmer in our sleeping bags, but we did spare a little time to take in the majestic mountains before putting on every article of clothing we had and shivering ourselves to sleep. Starting Point: N49°29 E89°43
Ending Point: N48°28 E90°36 Distance Traveled: 104.0 miles
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At sunrise we were on the road again and heading into the Altai Mountains. The road we were driving was a stunning road that clung to the side of mountains as roaring rivers flowed beneath us in deep valleys. In the brief interludes when the pouring rain stopped, the low-hanging clouds enshrined everything in mist and gave an eerie quality to the beauty we were witnessing. We discovered later this afternoon that the road we had driven was supposed to be the nicest drive in Siberia according to Lonely Planet, and I believe it! By early afternoon we had reached the border to exit Russia, and we were all ecstatic. For weeks Mongolia had been a theoretical concept; sure, it was always our goal, but it was also so far away. All of a sudden we were knocking on Mongolia’s door, and the years of dreaming and months of planning had actually paid off! Now we just had to get let in. While we were waiting in line in Russia we met Team Detour, a Swedish team in a snazzy new Škoda, and they decided they’d stick with us through the border crossing as well. It only took us two hours to get out of Russia, and with no idea what to expect we pulled out of Customs Control. As we were pulling out Charla asked Chase at what point he thought the paved road would end; before he could even answer, we realized that the pavement literally stopped at Russia’s legal edge. Welcome to Mongolia! After we spent many hours waiting for Mongolia to process our paperwork, all four teams legally entered the country at around 8PM. We had no intention of driving in the dark, so we drove about five kilometers away from the border and set up a massive camp on the side of the road. That night we cooked a giant camp stove feast and passed around a few bottles to celebrate that we had made it! Although we definitely knew that the hardest part of the trip was yet to come… Starting Point: N51°40 E85°46
Ending Point: N49°29 E89°43 Distance Traveled: 328.4 miles It didn’t take long for us to reach the Russian border once we left Semey this morning. Funnily enough, that actually was a bit of a problem for us because we didn’t have a chance to blow our last remaining tenge on candy and beer at the last shop before the border, as was our custom. We did have the pleasure of meeting Raf at the border, who was a Belgian bicyclist riding from Brussels to Ulaanbataar. We were stuck at the border with Raf because we had the unfortunate timing to arrive as the night shift of border patrol was ending. At 8:30AM the border officer told Raf that he only had thirty minutes left on his shift and he wanted to spend those relaxing rather than working. We all waited for thirty minutes, and we excitedly greeted the new border officer who showed up exactly at 9 o’clock. Imagine our chagrin when he told us he had just woken up, and it would probably be about half an hour until he got his coffee and had some food. Exactly an hour after we arrived at 8:30, the morning shift finally took our paperwork and admitted us at 9:30. For the second time on our journey, we were back in Russia! Pretty soon over the border we recognized two other Rally cars even though we couldn’t tell who was in them, so we pulled them over discover our crazy South Africans who had cooked up breakfast back in Almaty! They were a part of There and Bactrian, a team of two South Africans, a Brit, and an Aussie, and they were convoying with Geographically Displaced, a team of large Norwegian men in a very small car. We quickly joined their convoy, and made the all-important stop of the day: the tire shop. The Mongol Rally can be described as a tour of the world’s tire shops, and somehow we had made it this far without getting to visit any ourselves. For the exorbitant price of 100 rubles (a little over $3) we got our tire fixed, while each of the other teams also got their tires in tip-top shape in preparation of entering Mongolia tomorrow. After a longer stop than was expected, we were on our way towards the Altai Mountains with our new friends! Starting Point: N46°04 E80°46
Ending Point: N51°40 E85°46 Distance Traveled: 481.0 miles Though there were eleven different Rally teams all staying at our same hostel, we finally did make it out of Almaty this morning! Our route took us north and east out of the city around Lake Kaphchagay and further on into the rolling hills of the Kazakh steppe. Unlike our adventures in western Kazakhstan, there weren’t any camel sightings here; instead of driving through sandy desert, we were gaining elevation and passing through very green and lush landscapes. When we weren’t busy admiring the scenery, we were playing leapfrog with an expedition motorcycle that had a license plate in Arabic; after a couple passes we all pulled over to talk, and we had the pleasure of meeting Johan, a South African who was riding a giant loop through Asia on a Bahraini-registered motorcycle. (We have a hard enough time using paperwork in English to get through borders using Cyrillic alphabets, and we couldn’t even imagine using paperwork in Arabic!) Johan had great tales and interesting plans, and we all decided to rendezvous later on in Ulaanbataar. After stopping at a cute little market in a small town, we found ourselves looking for a place to bed down for the evening. We pulled off the road onto a herding path, and set up camp beside the path a little way off the road. That night we were treated to one of nature’s finest shows! As we sat under stars enjoying dinner we had the pleasure of watching a captivating meteor shower overhead. The meteor shower ended when clouds rolled in, but the clouds kept the show going by hosting a lightning storm on the horizon that kept us company as we started to doze off. Starting Point: N43°13 E76°56
Ending Point: N46°04 E80°46 Distance Traveled: 347.1 miles This morning we were delighted to wake up and experience the bora, or the strong winds that Trieste is famous for. The bora is strongest and most common in the winter, so we were lucky to experience it at all! When the bora is really ripping, seawater has actually been known to wash completely over the Molo Audace (the seawall we were on), and in the winter when it freezes it creates incredible wind-blown ice sculptures. We had noticed that all through town the sidewalks are lined with metal chains; it turns out the chains are there so that when the wind is blowing the pedestrians have something to hold on to! We didn’t get the full strength of Trieste’s bora, but our taste of it was pretty exciting. The wind died down later in the day, which worked well with our plans to go running along the sea wall as we had been most days of the week. At the end of our run, we discovered the Molo Audace partially blocked off and a crowd gathered in the Piazza. That evening was one of the launches for Dona Sangue Coast to Coast, a blood donation drive across the country that involved nightly music, a sailboat, and some talented drummers and flagthrowers. We joined the crowd in the Piazza for the performance, which led us back to the sea wall to hear Mike Sponza in concert at sunset. We stuck around after sunset for fireworks over the sea, a perfect next-to-last night farewell to the city.
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