stuck in a river

Wowsers. What a freaking day!

Last night we had ‘five fingers dish’ where you just get a chunk of meat bits and some flat pasta and you go for your life. After dinner I found out that the project I was working on in Mongolia funded the mum of the house to buy a spinning wheel and brush. She couldn’t figure out how to put it together. We gave it a go.

Sleeping on the floor, in sleeping bags, with freeeeeeeeezing temps outside meant I didn’t get the BEST sleep in the world but it was pretty good. Waking up in the morning and getting changed was a hassle. And exposing your bum to the cold for a pee isn’t easy.

I had three biscuits and a cup of tea for breakfast. I met the goat we were to have for dinner, gave him a pat on the head, walked around a little bit and packed up ready for the day. And Oh –what a day.

We got about 15km down the road to the base camp for the Tavan Bogd glacier. The base camp is marked by a river crossing. Our driver got out, jumped on the ice, fell through and decided it was still strong enough to drive over in a Jeep. It wasn’t. We got half way, I started crying WOOHOO because I thought we’d got there – but we hadn’t. No way, hozay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were well and truly stuck. The ice was thick, at least 5cm. There were numerous attempts before we had to get out and push. It made no difference. The driver and his uncle kept trying. Try try try Another Jeep turned up. They tried to pull from both directions with a shoddy rope. They tried everything. Then they tried breaking the ice in front of our vehicle so we could just get straight through. Then they got bogged even worse than we did. They would have tried about 100 times by the time they got it out. It took from 10:30am to 9pm for them to get it out. Needless to say, we didn’t get to the glacier. We had a picnic lunch, went for a walk and then by the time the sun was setting, the mum and baby that had come with the dad to help us out (who also got stuck) walked us to their house up a HUGE hill. I shared baby carrying duties.

It was about minus 10 to 20, depending on wind chill throughout the day. I had many many layers on but still got pretty bloody cold waiting around. I didn’t even touch the freezing water – the poor driver was in it for 10 hours straight. Brave. By the time we left, the water was starting to re-freeze around both vehicles, which would have been disastrous.

The house was so warm. She wasn’t overly impressed with out long stay, but nevermind. We were comfy. The kid was adorable. Super cute. Super alert. She was two.

We got picked up eventually (after I had fallen asleep on the floor) and driven back to our house. Dinner was the goat head and all the inside bits you can imagine. Heart, stomach, kidney, liver, head, brain, intestines. I had one potato concealed in pasta.

After dinner I showed the rest of the family my Australia videos – some didn’t get to see it last night because they were putting the wheel back on the vehicle. The man of the house, who is very friendly, wears lipstick when he goes outside as it’s what he’s got to stop his lips from chapping.