Bitten by a dog – Flooded

Day: 349

Sunrise:
05:20

Sunset:
21:27

Total kilometers:
1722

Soil condition:
Grass

Temperature – Day (maximum):
29°C

Temperature – day (minimum):
20 °C

Temperature – Night:
10 °C

Latitude:
49°42’773”

Longitude:
100°11’497”

Maximum height:
1492 m above sea level

Because Bilgee has asked Tanja to call first thing in the morning, she gets up and goes to Rezindorj and Gadimaa to make a phone call. It doesn’t take long for her to come back with a strange expression on her face. “What’s happened?” I ask worriedly. “The dog bit me.” “What? What dog?” I ask, startled and confused, shooting up. “I was running to the neighbor’s yurt when this bad dog came racing towards me. Come over here. I’ll show you, I said to him, and he did. Before I knew it, he was biting my calf.” “For God’s sake! Is it bad?”. Tanja rolls up her pants. A deep blue spot in the center of which two small holes show how teeth have penetrated the flesh. “Oh man, you were really lucky,” I realize, because a dog bite can cause decidedly worse damage. “I know. Actually, he just pinched me,” she replies in a brittle voice, disinfecting the bite mark. A few tears roll down her cheek. “It’s not the pain but the constant effort of the journey, the uncertainty of how to continue and the damned unreliability of the Mongolians. I think I’m tired of the expedition,” she says. “Me too. I’d actually like to throw the stuff down and fly home,” I admit. “Our ticket is still valid,” says Tanja. “Yes, I was already thinking about it. Especially yesterday when I was feeling so bad. But that means we’d have to give away our horses and most of our equipment in the next few days,” I point out. “It would be expensive and would also look like an escape,” Tanja considers. “Yes.” “That wouldn’t be fair to the journey so far and to us,” I say quietly. “That’s right. I don’t want to run away just because it’s exhausting at the moment.” “Neither do I.” “So we’re going to keep going?” “I’d like to reach the goal we’ve set ourselves.” “Me too.” “Well then, let’s not waste energy thinking about breaking off, let’s think about the next steps,” I say, feeling new energy welling up inside me. “Good, so what are the next steps?” asks Tanja, also more relaxed than a few minutes ago. “Saraa said in the last phone call that she had received the work permit. That means nothing should stand in the way of extending the visa.” “Not really, but we mustn’t forget where we are,” Tanja points out. “In Mongolia.” “Exactly. The only thing that’s certain here is uncertainty. So we’ll have to wait and see. Apart from that, I fully expect to get the stamp. We’ll just have to work out when we move to Bilgee’s friend’s house?” “He has to be there first. Somehow you can’t rely on Bilgee either. After all, he’s already broken his promises several times. And then he always has great ideas and when the time comes, everything looks different. His friend knew we were coming and even invited us. You phoned him from Khatgal to inform him of our imminent arrival and now he’s not here. Maybe we should stay here and wait for Bilgee’s arrival,” I suggest. “Maybe. Do you think he’ll come?” “Sure, why wouldn’t he come?” “I don’t know. Maybe because he always does what he feels like doing?” “Okay, okay, but he’s said at least 15 times that he’ll be here on July 20th with two horses. I’m sure he’ll come. His sense of honor demands it,” I reply.

After we have talked ourselves out, we lie back down on our sleeping mats to rest. “Hello! Good morning!” a voice calls out a little later. A young girl enters our tent without being asked and looks down at us curiously. It is the daughter of the second yurt, which is also only about 300 meters east of our tent. Tanja rises to offer the girl a cup of tea. I stay lying down, hoping to be able to doze for a while. However, the fourteen-year-old is stubborn. She looks at every piece of equipment and talks to us incessantly in her native language. Annoyed, I close the zipper, but her curious eyes continue to peer down at me through a gap in the fabric. “I don’t believe it. Do you never get any peace and quiet in this country,” I grumble. Olziihutag, as the little girl has imagined, doesn’t care. She sits down in front of my sleeping cabin and chattering away. We listen to her incomprehensible explanations and stories for at least an hour until she finally leaves. “Phew, hope she doesn’t come back so soon,” I say, struggling out of the sleeping cabin.

“Today is Sunday. There’s no point riding into the village to buy food. The stores are closed. We should stay,” says Tanja. “Okay, then we’ll stay. Apart from the little chatterbox, it’s quite peaceful here. Besides, the naadam doesn’t start for another three days,” I reply, going in search of more scraps of wood.

15:00. Olziihutag appears again in front of our tent. She hands Tanja a kind of tinny, rather dented milk jug. “What’s that?” “Food. You must be hungry, right?” says Olziihutag with a smile. “Oh, thank you very much. We’re ravenous,” Tanja replies, also in a friendly manner. I would also like to thank the girl. I look expectantly into my bowl, which Tanja is filling with the food. “Offal of sheep with rice in its own broth”, I say as calmly as if it were bread with sausage or cheese. “You can leave the offal in the bowl,” Tanja suggests. However, as there will soon be more pieces of offal than rice, it is not easy to implement the suggestion. Olziihutag is sitting next to us. She looks at our faces benevolently and is obviously pleased with the taste of our food. When she has left again, Tanja says. “Give the rest to Mogi. He is happy to get meat again.

Later, Renzindorj comes and asks if we need wood. As the families have to transport their wood themselves by truck, we refuse. “Maybe later,” we reply, thanking him. Since our neighbors each own a motorcycle and will soon be transporting their milk to Mörön every day, we hope to get a ride into town tomorrow. There we can get our petrol stove and other equipment we need from the store we set up at Saraa.

21:00. The nasty storm clouds have opened up on the surrounding mountains and are pouring their contents on us as if they wanted to drown us once again. We quickly carry everything we don’t want to get wet into the tent. Before I close the zipper, I take a few more photos of the infernal rain that is battering the land. “Holy shit! The water is flowing into our tent!” I shout, only now realizing that I’m standing with both feet in a rapidly growing lake. I immediately take off my shoes and jump into the sleeping cabin, laughing. We watch spellbound as the water collects in our awning. “If it goes on like this, we’ll drown,” I say, still amused. But after just a few moments, we lose all laughter. A veritable river squeezes through under the sleeping mats. “Oh dear, that’s no longer funny,” I say. “Look at this,” says Tanja, patting her hand on the rising floor of the inner tent. “Stop it! We don’t want it to get in here too,” I warn. We quickly put the cameras and laptops on the still-dry sleeping mats. The water in the awning is now at least 10 centimeters high. All the equipment is now flooded. Some of the duffel bags are not sealed. The water penetrates and drowns everything inside. One of my shoes floats away like a little boat. “If the water level rises a few more centimeters, it will spill into the inner tent!” I shout in horror. The rain lashes against the canvas with brutal ferocity. The pressure is so strong that water also penetrates from this side. It runs along the fabric and feeds the lake at the bottom. The fabric of the sleeping cabin is also soaking wet on the weather side. I’m thinking about how we should protect our technology if we actually sink here and now. Thank goodness the cameras and laptops are packed in waterproof bags. There is therefore no immediate danger of losing the expensive equipment for the time being.

At 22:00 the rain decreases. We fetch our horses to tether them in front of the tent. Before we wade back into the tent, Tanja points to a torrential stream about three meters wide that rushes by just 20 meters from the tent. “Wow, it wasn’t there before the rain,” I say in amazement. “It’s a good thing you didn’t set up our tent in his run. That would have been fatal,” she says. “Yes, the stream in our tent is almost laughable in comparison.” Hoping that our stream doesn’t turn into what we saw in front of the tent, we lie back down on our floating mats and wait for the storm to pass. Water slowly enters the inner tent. I can tame it for the time being with a cloth. At 10:30 p.m., the hammering against the tent suddenly stops. I dry the wet parts of the inner tent again, lie down with a deep sigh and fall into a waking sleep.

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