Through the dunes

Following the route further south we soon encountered the mighty Khongoryn Els. This giant strip of dunes is an amazing sight! One moment there are bushes and even green patches along the tiny stream and then the sand rises to huge dunes!

Tiny-Planet 🌏

The strip runs east to west for almost 100 km and can reach heights up to 80m!
There is only one small kind of pass/saddle where you can cross the 6 to 12 km of sand to get to the south. But before crossing over we followed it for a while looking for a nice place to camp.


Fun Fact: If there are green patches amidst a huge swat of sand it is always used for grazing. Which in turn means its usually full of goat shit 💩🤣






We still managed to find a lovely spot hidden away behind the dunes and enjoyed the evening.

Worth mentioning is that the other two cars decided to venture into the sand a bit deeper while we setup camp.  They made it back in the end, after a lot of shovelling and pushing 😆 

The next day we all had a go in the sand and managed not getting stuck! 😎 As requested more pictures:

We then powered through the sandy passage to the south side without stopping in fear of getting stuck, hence no pictures 😆
Not much further and it was time to head back up north. We took a little detour and drove through the Valley of the Vultures. You could find snow and ice all year round here due to the ravine being so deep and steep. Sadly this hasn't been the case the last couple of years 😕

Nevertheless it was a spectacular drive through this narrow gorge "upriver" and then branching off into quite a slanting track. Not everybody was comfortable with the cars at that incline 😂
Obviously there was a Mongolian family having a picnic in the middle of the valley in their stock Toyota Prius 🙈😂