We stay in ger camps which range from the delightfully simple with ingenious showers and loos which are a seat over a hole (in a shed I am delighted to report) to the almost luxurious but showers and loos there were at every stop and boy did we need those showers after the long hot bus rides! These ger camps sit isolated in the enormous landscape often with no other habitation in sight.

And we’ve met some local people along the way. At our first camp we visited the family who run the ger camp we stayed at and milked their goats and crowded into their ger for chat and curiosity. In the middle of that one their landline phone rang!!!!! Another time we just stopped and asked a random family out on the steppe who were in the middle of setting up their home for the summer, they were horse breeders and had just come down from the hills where they winter as its more sheltered. I didn’t go into their ger, preferring to inspect a line of their horses tethered nearby and bonded with our support driver who’s a horseman and raced in the Nadaam when he was a kid. Next time I see him I’ll ask if he raced bareback!

This horse breeding family may be nomads but don’t hink for a minute they are poor or in need of tips from us – they have 4 gers and many fine horses, a motor bike and truck.

We’ve had fabulous days and lovely walks out in the open landscape or into narrow gorges (where there is still ice left over from the winter as the sun never reaches there) or down over the most incredible sandy cliffs – here the land has shelved down in a massive way revealing an enormous hoarde of dinosaur fossils which were excavated in the 1920s. We’ve seen Buddhist temples and Shaman stupas and a museum of stuffed animals – not sure what to feel about that – it included snow leopards, lynxes, eagles, camels, the lot.

Apparently I was very honoured to be allowed to inspect their best horses at close quarters – very much appreciated. And specially that connection with people that goes beyond language