Onset of winter

Day: 44

Sunrise:
06:30

Sunset:
19:41

As the crow flies:
16

Daily kilometers:
20

Total kilometers:
524

Soil condition:
Meadow

Temperature – Day (maximum):
12 °C

Temperature – day (minimum):
4 °C

Temperature – Night:
minus 8

Latitude:
48°57’770”

Longitude:
103°04’201”

Maximum height:
1547 m above sea level

Time of departure:
11:30

Arrival time:
16:21

The night is terribly cold. A glance at the thermometer reveals minus 11 degrees. And on the seventh of September. If the grades continue to plummet to such an extreme extent, then God have mercy on us. This is the first night when writing is out of the question. The laptop is so cold that I no longer have any feeling in my fingers when typing. Frost and frost flowers form everywhere in the inner tent. My fingers are cracked. The deep cracks hurt considerably. Wouldn’t have expected to reach the limits of endurance at such an early stage of the expedition. But maybe I’m not really used to life out here yet and wonder if my system is still too soft from civilization? Has my mind not yet adapted to the world out here? In our experience, it sometimes takes months for the body and mind to accept new circumstances without grumbling. Until body and mind no longer rebel. Ultimately, it is always a “state of mind”. By which I mean that every situation is only as bad as the weight we give it. Well, whatever. Everything inside me is rebelling at the moment. I stop writing, put the laptop away and crawl deep into my sleeping bag. My feet are clutching a small hot-water bottle that Tanja filled with hot water two hours ago. They quickly take on normal temperatures. Then I warm my hands and the tip of my ice-cold nose on it. “A hot water bottle like this is one of the best inventions man has made”, I think to myself and can sleep relatively quickly for the first time since the cold snap a few days ago.

In the morning, our men are awake before eight o’clock. Bilgee has already made a fire and boiled water. We are delighted with the activism he displays without being asked. With Ulzii, it’s always something different. As a rule, we have to tell him every move. Today, however, we can’t complain and are delighted with the diligence of our companions. Before we set off, we get a visitor. Nomads from the surrounding area gather at the camp. “Where do they come from? (Tahanaas irsen be?) Is the standard question. We come from Germany”, (“Be germanaas irsen”) we answer in a friendly manner. Bilgee and Ulzii talk and laugh with the shepherds. Then we are ready to go. Even if we have certain ideas in our heads about the time of our departure, these are regularly overturned by unforeseeable events such as camp visits, torn halters, unruly carriage horses and many other incidents. This is apparently due to the country’s completely different rhythm. Western concepts of time do not work here in any way. Understanding and learning to accept this country with its foreign laws is certainly another major learning task.

Not far behind the camp we pass large, man-made stone circles. Witnesses of millennia-old cultures. “They’re old graves,” explains Bilgee. We ride past a rock face and cross a small river. A ford makes the obstacle passable for our cavalcade. Nomads sit on the bank, bantering, laughing loudly and waving cheerfully at us. You decapitated a bottle of vodka to empty it in a short time.

When the sun then hides behind dark clouds, the temperature instantly drops by 15 degrees to zero degrees. The icy wind makes it feel even colder. “Look at that!” Tanja calls out, pointing to the scattered snowflakes floating down from the sky. We rein in our horses and put on two warm fleece jackets. Then our journey through this extreme country continues. We reach the paved road again, which we follow to cross a 1,700 meter high pass. As we don’t have a strong yak to pull the horse-drawn cart over the barrier, we use the road. Our carriage horses Bor and Sharga also have to make an effort on the slippery ground to get their load up there. “Hua, it’s cold,” shivers Tanja, wrapped up in her parka. I repeat “Hüjten, hüjten, hüjten, hüjten” (“Cold, cold, cold, cold”) in quick succession so that Ulzii can hardly contain his laughter at my apparently funny Mongolian pronunciations.

At 16:20 we find a nice place to camp in a high valley. There is plenty of lush grass for the horses, a small stream and firewood. As soon as we have unsaddled and hobbled the horses, Bilgee and Ulzii fetch wood from the nearby forest. Tanja lights a small fire and I set up our tent and put everything we need for sleeping inside. To protect us from the cold ground, I lay out a felt mat that I bought in Erdenet for the first time today and because of the already low temperatures I pack away the summer sleeping bags and spread out our winter sleeping bags. As you can survive in them at temperatures as low as minus 39 degrees, we shouldn’t be freezing from now on. Our men also have sleeping mats, felt mats and three horse blankets from us. According to them, they are not cold at night.

As soon as Bilgee returns from fetching firewood, he prepares boortsog (dough balls). He doesn’t mind this work. On the contrary, he is very happy when his creations taste good and they do so without any exaggeration. “Oh dear!” exclaims Tanja as the pot of boiling water slips off the hearth and tips over. “Well, Mogi’s happy about that,” laughs Bilgee without getting angry about the incident. Shortly before the sun sets, the thermometer shows 0° degrees. With cold fingers we eat the hot bortsogs spread with jam. Then we flee from the rapidly falling temperatures into the tent. As I have the best watch duty today between 22:00 and 24:00, I am using the time to write these lines. Through the silence around me, I hear a new, unfamiliar sound. I listen attentively to analyze it. “Snow, no doubt snow is falling on our canvas. I take a look outside. Within a few minutes, the landscape is powdered white. I immediately pull my head back inside our dwelling. Now that my feet are in the expedition down sleeping bag, they are really warm despite the minus 8 degrees. I keep warming my cold fingers, which are flying over the keyboard, on the little hot water bottle with a funny elephant smiling at me. Although this thing is designed for small children, I’m sure I enjoy it just as much. Tanja is lying next to me and is already asleep. Her shift starts at midnight today. Her idea of watching the horses from the tent makes it possible to keep watch in these temperatures. I hope we can continue to protect our animals from theft in this way in the future. At two o’clock in the morning, building cramps force me into the wintry night. Again I suffer from energy-sapping diarrhea. “Something in our food is not agreeing with my stomach. But what could it be?” I ponder, shivering from the cold as I trudge back to the tent.

We look forward to your comments!