This is our ger. It’s rather cozy really. It is constructed by layering felt onto a frame and it can then be easily disassembled for easy moving. The Mongolian country people are 100% nomadic to this day. They herd sheep and cattle and they move to find grass.
I was pretty excited about staying there. I figured it would be like camping just in a bigger tent. I had already been in a ger in the Gobi desert in China and it was pretty basic with the meals cooked outside over a campfire. This was was more posh.
That’s Brayara, my guide, who is actually a geophysicist moonlighting as a guide. He is going to make us some pancakes on a gas camp stove. His bed is the little couch across the way. Mine was on the other side but same set up.
That’s the other side of the ger with the kid who lives there and the second picture with the little concrete box is the loo. Not my favorite because no seat just three planks on the ground with the middle one missing. It was a bit of a balancing act,.
Anyway the ger started out great. We ate our pancakes. There was a solar panel attached to a battery so we actually had light. We had a small container with a spigot and we put clean water in that for washing up etc. No water to wash ourselves but we had a kettle and a dish pan so we could boil water and use that for washing.
I was very proud of myself as I had survived the dust devils and the horsemen and the dung but I have to confess that the ger did me in. I was fine up until bed time and then. . .
First of all I am not a country girl and I am a very light sleeper. There were dogs that didn’t just bark they barked in a never ending staccato of barks without pause, without breath. Then there were goats and sheep. They bleat all night. Then there were cows and they. bellow.
At midnight the fireworks start. OK OK I am still game. But then. There were the ants. Ants everywhere we laid anything down even if it werent food. There was a kind of weird linoleum floor to the tent but ants everywhere. Then the flyers. As soon as we turned off the lights the flyers started dashing themselves against the roof of the ger. And they made some kind of furtive fairy wing beating noise too. Never did find out what they were.
Well then there was the cold. Deep cold from the desert that saturated the ger and crept into my sleeping bag.
Finally, and this was it for me—the smell. Do you know the smell of cat urine? That vinegary smell? That horrible smell? That smell is NOTHING. Forget about it, in fact, pray for it to trade for the smell which permeated the whole living environment—goat urine. If you have never smelled it I can assure you that the odor is listed in the UN commission ban against olfactory torture. It is so pungent that it makes your eyes water and your teeth shake. It gets mixed with the dust in your hair and your nose and rubs itself into your own essence until there remains nothing of your own fragrance. No more. I lasted my two days but I was thrilled to be leaving. I started this adventure wondering if I were too old to make such trips, I can categorically state that I am too old for ger life.
- However, more later because the people more that compensated for a little discomfort.
