Today, we drove from Mandalgov to Dalanzadgad, a capital of the Omnogov province - the Southmost province of the Gobi region. The road was perfect, for at least 100km, when it suddenly deteriorated (many quite bad potholes) until it came to an end due to roadworks. We took one of the many alternative roads, which was a much nicer way to drive than the poor quality asphalt. This was yet another tester of the Silk Way rallyI, but we had very little dust. It gave a feeling of great freedom with cars choosing the way they wanted to go and not being bound to a single lane. When the road reappeared, we tested it, but found it was still bad and returned to the road only after we saw other cars using it and alternative roads coming to an end.
We drove for several dozen kilometres at good speed until we hit a set of three perfectly imperfect potholes that damaged our front right tire. Thankfully, we have two spares - it just feels reassuring to have another spare wheel when driving in Gobi. As this is Mongolia, there is plenty of space at the roadside - we drove off the road to change the tire. While Pablo was working on the car, I cooked lunch. A herd of cows went past looking at us as if asking whether we needed help. A side note about animals: this being Gobi, we saw plenty of sheep and goats. Not that many cows. But the highlight was of course the camels. We saw quite a few camel herds. One even crossed the road in front of our car.
After changing the wheel and having lunch, we continued towards Dalanzadgad. At our astonishment, the town was covered with heavy clouds and we could see shadows of rain at the distance. The sky became so dark that the approach to Dalanzadgad felt like arrival to a twilight zone. The town itself is quite large and clearly developing with new roads being built and even an amusement park with a large ferry’s wheel. We checked in into our hotel, which looked the best maintained judging by the reviews. Although the price was almost triple compared to the previous night - on the par with our hotel in Ulaanbaatar, there is still no air con (neither was there one in the other two hotels - only in Ramada). Sooo hot - second night of sweat I reckon.
We then continued towards the Yolin Am gorge under very heavy rain. Thankfully, once we arrived, the rain had stopped and the roads did not become impracticable mud - something we quite feared as we saw some mud at the side of the road. The road itself was impeccable - smooth asphalt - this is the road which continues to the border with China. At much of our astonishment, we climbed 600 meters from Dalanzadgad to the entrance to Yolin Am, but the climb was so smooth that we were only noticing it the our ears were getting blocked. We then climbed 400 m more to arrive at 2400m above sea level. Then we parked our car and took a walk in the gorge with other tourists. There was a crew of a lady singer filming a song in the mountains. We saw plenty of birds, pikas and small rodents. The best prize were the mountain goats - argali - a family of them: males with gorgeous horns, a female and several calves.
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