20 July 2025

Pictographs and flaming cliffs

There is a firmly established rhythm to touring through the Gobi Desert. The first part of the day involves a three hour drive over dirt roads, which is bone rattling to say the least. Though it's hard to mind too much as the the landscape changes everyday and is simply awe inspiring. Our driver, Tergey, is very skilled and navigates the terrain like a racer in the Dakar Rally. As he doesn't speak very much English (though a lot more than our Mongolian) Gillian resorted to making up an elaborate back story for him. Former wrestler, Gobi drift driver and fixer (actually, mostly true, we only guess the "fixer" part).

We travelled 170 km from our previous ger camp through the Khavtsgait Valley in the Gurban Saikhan Mountain National Park. A stop (to fix a rattle in the door of the van) also found a close encounter with a (non-venemous) steppe rat snake. Apparently seeing them while you are driving means you'll be rich. Before we arrived at our first destination, we had a little comfort break in the middle of the road, in the middle of the desert. Gillian adjusted to these new arrangements admirably if somewhat reluctantly - oncoming cars provided motivation to be quick! 

The pre-lunch attraction was a hilltop covered in pictographs, carved into rocks covered in iron oxide. They cover a wide rage of times, from 12,000 to about 2000 years ago, not counting the more recent dickheads who decided to add more modern decorations. Look in the pictures below for ibexes, reindeer (a sign of big changes in the local climate!), hunters on horses and even camel trains and chariots. It was a lot of fun, although James did try to inspect every available rock on the way through. The view from the top was also, as usual, spectacular. 

After lunch at the ger camp, there was time for a rest and then on to the flaming cliffs, which have been a significant paleontological site since the 1920s. We watched a video talking about the American expedition that "discovered" the site (and plundered it, naturally). Guyen told us that they were actually told by locals about a place where dragons were buried (the fossil bones were exposed at many places across the site), so they don't really have much claim to discovery, as such. Thankfully, most of the fossils removed have apparently been returned to Mongolia. Views were spectacular, again. The cliffs have there name from their red colour, allegedly more striking at sunset, which doesn't really show that well in the photos. There's a nice view overlooking the cliffs from the camp, and a magnificent sunset didn't really translate the way we expected on the cliff faces. But the photos show we felt no need for compensation.




3 comments:

  1. How incredible! Also, a 'rat snake'??! And we thought Australia had weird predators...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Kate Sullivan30 July, 2025 01:31

      SO DRAGONS ARE REAL?!?!?! I KNEW IT!!!

      Delete

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