From Ikh Gazriin Chuluu I drove north back to Ulaanbaatar for one night. I’ve officially ended my loop of eastern Mongolia and now it’s time to start my loop of the north central region of Mongolia. I left Ulaanbaatar headed for the Khögnö Khan Uul Nature Reserve. On the way and due west about 130ish miles from Ulaanbaatar, I stopped at the ruins of Tsogt Taijiin Tsagaan Balgas (N 48.023346, E 104.351773). This was the home of the mother of…
The drive from Chinggis southwest to Sainshand was surprisingly easy. I had the wide open steppe with the usual animal herds in the first half. The second half of the trip was paved all the way. I did hit a pretty nasty thunder storm on the way, but I was happy about it since it cleaned a lot of the dust off the LandCruiser. I can actually see out the front window again, still not the back window, however. I…
I left Dariganga in the afternoon to try and get a head start on my drive to Chinggis rather than try to do it all the next day. I made it just past Baruun-urt and then took a random dirt road a couple of miles away from everything and set up camp 6 (N 46.7224413, E 112.7214961). I know all these camp pics look sort of the same, but I promise they’re not. After passing through Baruun-urt and before camp,…
I left Choibalsan early for another loooong day of driving south. Not much happened along the drive. Just the usual herds of cattle, goats, and horses occasionally blocking the road. I made a quick stop about half way in dusty Baruun-urt for gas. I did see a fox late in the afternoon that was a bit too quick to get a picture of. I also saw a huge herd of gazelle shortly after that. I managed to get a long…
The drive from Dadal to Choibalsan was a very long slog. The muddy conditions didn’t last too long thankfully. As I got further south the ground got a little drier and the roads got a little smoother, relatively speaking anyway. At the risk of boring you with endless road pics, that really is what half or more of this trip is about. Seeing and experiencing the infinite expanse of grasslands that is Mongolia. I’ve been to some pretty remote out…
It’s time to start exploring the rest of Mongolia. I decided to start by heading east into Khentii province. But first just a bit outside of Ulaanbaatar is Mongolias easiest national park to access, Gorkhi Terelj. The main draw here it seems is to stay in a resort type camp and go on extended horse back riding trips. Which would probably be amazing, but it also seemed like a bit of a tourist trap to me. There were a couple…
I’m at it again! Greetings and salutations from Mongolia in the central Asian steppe! After roughly 38 hours of flights and layovers I finally arrived in Ulaanbaatar, the capitol of Mongolia, extremely tired. The ride from the airport took a little over an hour in Ulaanbaatars notorious traffic, but I made it to my hostel, checked in and headed to the main square, Sükhbaatar Sq, just a couple of blocks away to wander around with what was left of the…
I think I’m pretty well known for refusing to work on my birthday, but this year I took it a step further and took the whole week off to visit Yucatan, Mexico. Yucatan is a pretty small state and I know I can accomplish a lot on what is definitely the shortest international trip I’ve ever taken. I based myself in the Yucatan capitol of Mérida, dubbed the safest city in Mexico. Let’s hope so. Here’s a funny speculative story…
I said goodbye to Mt Korab and Radomire and finally made my way to Tirana. Usually, I explore the capital of a country first and then make my way around the rest. This is the first time I did the opposite and it feels a bit wierd honestly. Tirana is a huge city, but all the interesting stuff is in the very compact and busy center. It was easy to get around in on foot and turned out to be…
I left Gjirokaster and drove about 240 miles all the way back to the northern part of Albania, the northeast corner this time. You may remember, I tried to hike up Mt Korab, the highest peak in Macedonia AND Albania when I was in Macedonia a few weeks ago, but was denied by the Macedonian border cops who said that the trail was closed. Instead, I hiked Medenica, which was an awesome hike, and got a pretty epic selfie with…