Another long day of driving, with lots of dust and very
little pavement. However, we have moved out of the western Gobi
and traversed a glorious landscape of small, jagged hills and endless sky. The
day was clear, and like the movie title once expressed it, in Mongolia in a
clear day you can see forever. Then it struck us that the reason you can see
impossibly wide grasslands is because there are no fences! Yes, throughout the
country there are no barbed-wire fences that could impede the movement of the
herds and their nomadic owners. This is what the US
or Mexico
might have looked like prior to the arrival of the Europeans; what a cool
thought, isn’t it?
We have been amazed at the amount of granite we have seen
during our trip. Sometimes it looks like “young” granite, just like in the Sierra Nevada , but other times, like between Bayanhongor
and Arvayheer, it looks “old”, sheared, and beaten up. We suspect we are
traversing a region of Precambrian basement, where the granites have been
metamorphosed into coarse-grained granitic gneisses. Zoe is getting a good
refresher in mineralogy and exotic lithologies (e.g., lamprophyres) from both
her Dad and Godfather J
We arrived in Arvayheer around 8 pm, booked ourselves in a
nice hotel, and had a delicious dinner. Mongolian cuisine relies heavily in
mutton, but this time the best dishes were some vegetarian empanadas and a
delicious salad with coleslaw, lettuce, tomatoes, olives, and a very tasty
dressing.
No comments:
Post a Comment