Camel

Two Americans Brave Foreigners’ First Camel Odyssey of Gurvan Saikhan

My senses tingled. Something wasn’t right. My camel acted skittish, his ears flicked back and forth and he refused to go forward. “Look out!” Suddenly my normally slow and plodding camel bolted into a frantic run. I instinctively grabbed his front hump as he dashed towards a small ravine only meters away. I tugged hard left on his nose peg rein to avoid disaster and yelled, “Zogsoh!” (Mongolian camel command for stop). He ignored me and jerked wildly in the opposite direction.

Mongolian camel saddles do not have a girth strap and are only held in place by gravity. I lost my grip and launched into the air still in my saddle. In that suspended moment I saw the source of my camels terror—a blurred brown and white flash. A pinto pony, equally startled by our approach, had leaped up from a hidden sleeping spot and was trying to escape. I only got a glimpse before I hit the ground. My adventure buddy, Vince Harrington, smacked into the ground next to me, both our camels running for their lives. When you decide to buy camels and ride across the Gobi Desert, you have to expect the unexpected.

When we approached Toroo of the Khongor Guest House in Ulaanbaatar and told him we wanted to buy camels, he said, “It is an unusual request, but I will see what I can do.” We had heard from the past editor of the Mongol Messenger, Michael Kohn, that Toroo could make things happen in Mongolia. True to form, Toroo told us, “I have a contact in Bayanzag in the Gobi Desert who will sell you good riding camels.” We were also told by the director of Three Camels Lodge Tourist camp, Tumen, who we met later, that the route we had chosen—riding completely through and around the Gurvan Saikhan National Park—would make us the first foreigners to attempt such a trip by camel.

Buying a camel is a little like buying a car with a few twists. You look the camel over, go for a test drive, and wipe the camel spit off your face. We bought three camels from Gandbat, a camel herder and guide. How much does a camel cost? Well that depends if you are a juulchin (tourist) or a local. We paid Tg700,000 per camel which is probably twice the amount a local would pay. But, they were good, stable riding camels for the most part. Due to our concerns that it would be hard to find water in remote areas of the Gobi, we hired Gandbat to go with us. Even though Gandbat was our guide and camel instructor, his longest previous trips had been one-day tourist camel treks from his home to the Flaming Cliffs, a dinosaur discovery site.


Dinosaurs were one of the items Vince and I had on our minds when we started our trek. Would it be possible for two non-paleontologists to find a dinosaur? Our best source of information was to ask the locals if they had seen any dinosaur bones. I asked this question at every ger we stopped at. We were surprisingly lucky. With local Mongolians helping us, we came across a T-Rex pelvis, a Hardosaurus leg bone, a Protoceratops, a juvenile ankylosaurus, and even the dinosaur eggs made famous by Roy Chapman Andrews in the early 1900s.

Gandbat knew how to find local wells when there were gers nearby, for wherever there are people and animals, there is water. But, in the more remote areas, we relied on Mongolian maps and GPS (Global Positioning System) technology. The maps were somewhat dated, and in some places, one out of three wells was a dud. We carried up to 70 liters of water because there were portions of the trip where there was no water for one-hundred kilometers. Since we could travel at a maximum speed of 30km per day, though usually more like 20km per day, we always carried extra water. Scooping water from a remote well and seeing a dead rat in the bucket was enough incentive to always treat the water for safety.

Our trip took us from Bayanzag to Yolyn Am, Bayandalai, Hongoryn Els, Gurvantes Zulgania Oasis, Bayanlig and back to Bayanzag, a loop of 1000 kilometers in 60 days. During this journey, we discovered the incredible hospitality of the Mongolian people who took us into their gers and shared their shelter and food. We were taught how to milk and butcher goats, weave camel-hair rope, load pack camels, erect a ger, and make a number of Mongolian dishes like buuz and tsuivan.

At the end of the journey, we sold two of our camels back to Ganbat. He wasn’t sure how healthy they would be at the end of this rough trip and was hesitant to commit to a buyback. But, we had taken good care of our camels, feeding them every night, and they were fat and healthy at the end of the journey. I had, however, bonded with my riding camel, Earlii-harr, and Ganbat offered to keep her for me should I ever come back for another camel journey across the Gobi.

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