Camping in the Altai Mountains

Another twenty-ish minutes of bumpy dirt takes us to the edge of the valley and into the mountain massif. In between two sandy mountain spines lies a lush little valley with a flowing river and a sudden burst of greenery. 

With my phone stuffed deep into my backpack and no way to tell the time, I assume we have arrived at our destination for the day: a campsite with three tents, three horses and two camels. Tamar climbs out of the car before it comes to a halt and flies towards a man dressed in camouflage pants and a black long sleeve; the rest of us scurry out after her. 

The stranger she embraced is introduced to us as Biaktus and is Alpy’s brother. A piece of grass hangs between his lips. The rest of his face is covered by the shadow of his little wool flat hat. He won’t be trekking with us, but we will see him in a couple of days when we’ve hiked our way to their spring camp near the Chinese border. 

The two short, plump, black-haired ladies greet us next: Amaka and Yura. They are the chefs for the duration of our trek, giving us the room to maximise our hiking time. Yura is the shorter one of the two and wears rectangular glasses and an all-black outfit, contrasting her somewhat pale skin. Amaka, who is slightly taller and wider, is dressed in a pink sweater and green pants. They embrace me in a hug, welcoming me and my travel companions. They speak no English, and I speak no Kazakh or Mongolian, but we get by with body language and hand signals. Their cooking skills are an added benefit: our two-metre-tall companion, Coen, has a gluten allergy, an unknown concept in Mongolia. Luckily it is a fairly easy allergy to manage, if she was a vegetarian, it would’ve been a different story. 

Making his way over from the grazing animals is Ahat. He is the horse whisperer and will care for our camels and horses as we trek. His skin is permanently tanned and his hands small and calloused. He outstretches a muscular arm accompanied by a soft smile but avoids direct eye contact. He looks a bit like my ex, and I catch myself stealing a few too many glances.

The final person we are introduced to is a nine-year-old boy wearing a caramel-coloured camel-skin vest on top of his wool jumper. Bendu is Alpy’s son and eldest child. He will be driving back with Biaktus, although if it were up to Bendu, he’d come along on our adventure. 

 

With the pleasantries over, it’s time to set up our share of camp. Of the three tents, Coen has the biggest one. She is a stereotypical Dutch woman whose seventy-year-old body refuses to shrink. Pas, a much smaller Dutch, 59-year-old woman, would sleep in the tent with Coen. I’m not sure it’s the best match. Coen tends to yap about any and all travel stories that aren’t the one she is living through right now, and Pas is a sensitive and somewhat pessimistic individual. I reckon it’s a matter of days before someone snaps.

                  The second tent belongs to Inge, which she kindly shares with me, and the third to Tamar. As we finish putting up the third, Biaktus hops in the Jeep and drives off into the pale, empty valley we came from. With his chin up and his chest out, Bendu paraded around camp. Tamar laughed, explaining,

“He always sees his father and uncle and grandfather go on adventures, but he never gets to come. Now he’s proud, he feels like a man.” She calls out to Bendu, avidly waving at him so that her whole body looks to be waving to the boy. Her blonde shoulder length hair swooshes through the air. Tamar has known Bendu since he was two.

 

We had been moving for the past ten days, exploring Ulaanbaatar, driving cross-country, and building a greenhouse. Now our campsite stood silent except the smooth song of water floating past small, round boulders lying in the river. The tents are scattered so that no one hear the others snore. I can’t promise Inge will be that lucky. For now, I settle my air mattress and sleeping bag in the short grass near the water. Knowing I have nowhere to go, I wrestle off my boots and wool socks, exposing my feet to some fresh air. The wind slaloms between my toes and traces the balms of my feet. Under my thin thermal, goosebumps climb across my skin. I put my burgundy wool socks back on. Only the toes are still sweaty.

                  I manoeuvre my journal from my overly full turquoise daypack, the kind with the hip support. The pages of my journal clap up a symphony. As the afternoon grows into the early evening, this sliver of valley transforms into a wind tunnel. Rushing down the rock-covered slopes, the wind clashes in the middle, my hair and paper the dupe. The air flips through snippets of moments I managed to write down.  There are many blank pages, but I search for the one next to my last entry. I gave up on writing pretty during the 27-hour bus ride we took from Ulaanbaatar to Ölgi, Mongolia’s biggest city in the west, but I’m trying to stick to a chronological order. Every time we’ve had time to slow down, another cool thing happens. My blue pen ballets across the paper, jumping from one event to another in an attempt to make sense of the last few days. My last entry reads ‘it’s been 21 hours and my butt is numb.’ I don’t even make it to the end of the page before the next noteworthy thing appears.

                  From deeper within the valley and the opposite side from which we came, a herd of ten or twelve wild horses appear. They settle on a grassy patch near our camp, close to our three horses. The black mare seems be their matriarch and paces back and forth in front of her herd. She keeps herself between our two herds until she decides we are harmless and uninterested. A chocolate brown foal with a black mane struts over to the matriarch before leaning down to chew on some grass.

They are not the only visitors we get that evening. After a meaty soup and some tea for dinner, we make our way back to the tents as the last rays of sun illuminate the mountain in a rose-golden glow. I spin around in every direction, mesmerised by the place I find myself in. Before I climb into Inge’s tent, a herd of camels makes their way down the mountain on the other side of the river. They descend slowly, almost in single file, before settling down. Their woolly coats are brown except for one, her coat is a pasty white that provides little camouflage against the rocky brown and grey mountain. Earlier Tamar mentioned that camels can sleep for six to eight hours every night. Unlike horses who sleep standing up, camels fold their legs up underneath them and settle into the grass to sleep. I keep my pants, t-shirt and socks on as I crawl into my soft, thick sleeping bag. I tell Inge goodnight and go to sleep hoping the horses and camels will still be there in the morning.