All good things must come to an end, so with some regret we
packed our gear and started down the mountain. We have about 300 km of rough
terrain to cover before we get to Hovd, at which point we will undertake the
official “return trip” back to Ulaan Baatar.
There is not much to say about this leg of the trip. We got
a bit lost trying to find our way around the construction of a new highway, but
that led us to a small hike along the sides of the mountain pass. Here again we
found a sequence of phyllites and schists, and we amused ourselves looking for
porphyroblasts of uncommon minerals. I was hoping for staurolite, but instead
we found chlinochlore, chiastolite, and pyrite, which is consistent with a low
grade of metamorphism.
By lunch time we were pretty beaten up, so we stopped by a
stream running across a verdant strip of land inhabited by horses. It was a
great spot, and the lunch was good, but Zoe spoiled the mood by finding dozens
of tiny ticks scrambling to climb on her tender skin. After a freak out session
she also found that ticks were also hiding in her North Face fleece, upon which
she labeled it a tick-infested jacket and threw it in the recesses of the jeep,
vowing not wear it again until she has a chance to launder it.
And then I fell asleep in the back seat, conveniently padded
by our gear. So I missed the afternoon portion of the grueling trip, which had
lots of dust, washboard road surfaces, and surprise encounters with big
construction trucks. I woke up as we were entering Hovd, another handsome city
of about 30,000 people, but I could see by a look at John’s face that it had
been rough.
Dinner was at a Kazakh restaurant, where the high point was a sausage
made with horse meat that was particularly tasty.
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