almatty, kazhakstan 2

mongolia has been incredible.  the rally organisation announced on the day  we left the country that this leg had been the most challenging yet.  this made me feel a little better as i wasn't sure either us or the car to take the pounding for much longer.  the desert roads are particularly bad as they have been building a new road down our route.  the construction traffic have virtually destroyed the bush tracks and the attrition to the car has been pretty horrendous.  we have completely laost the bash plate that protects the bottom of the car.  we think this happened in the sandy section.  we managed to avoid one sand dune where a car was bogged and promptly got stuck in the next one.  the sand is like glue and if you allow the momentum to fall off, you are lost.  luckily there were plenty of cars on hand and we managed to push the car back and find another route.  the best part of the desert was driving quite fast (55mph) across the desert where no one else had ever been.  the car ran smoothly over the scrubby surface and a 360 degree view showed that we were the only ones insight with the swetting sun in the west and the campsite just over the horizon.  this euphoric feeling was in contrast to the usual bumping and grinding and scraping along.  at some point we obviously caught a rock om the exhaust which sheared off just under the engine.  this meant that we sounded like a tractor and were constanly overcome by fumes.  we had to run like this for two days until we reached Kovd where we got the exhaust welded for the princely sum of $50 - we subsequently found that we had been totally ripped off but it still seemed like good value.

camping has been the name of the game in mongolia and the Nomad tour team have looked after us very well.  there are delicious hot showers and the food is a stange micture of western and local food all served on a plastic prison style tray.  evenings are spent trying to get the car ready for the next day, having a few beers and swapping stories.  We have already made some very good friends and the atmosphere and camaraderie are excellent.  we typically start early the next day which means we incure more penalties but we can see no point in arriving after dark which is no fun and even more tiring.  so 6am rise and leave camp by 7am if possible.  the last few daysa were complicated by the fact that car was running very roughly and would not start on the battery in the morning so a push or a tow was required.  the rough running is because the car is running too rich becaue of the altitude - our highest pass was 8500 feet.  the poor starting was because it was jolly cold.  on the l;ast morning it was -12C in camp in the morning!!