Temee kholiin khuruu

Camels! One of the things I was most excited about coming here. Seriously.
We came over a small rise looking for some granite outcropping, and there was a small herd (about 20) laying down in the gully out of the wind. We managed to get pretty close to em. Groups of camels do not smell very pleasant.

I've spent a couple of days out in the field mapping with Sharon Carr from Carleton University. She's an excellent structural geologist, and I feel like I learned quite a bit trudging through the sand looking for bedding. One of the days we were out 3 herders came over and seemed curious about what we were doing. Luckily I had received my Mongolian Phrasebook the night before (thanks mom and dad), and we managed to work through a few slow, horribly pronounced sentences. I learned that 1 of the guys, and the woman were married, had two children. Their animals were fattening nicely, they agreed the weather was nice. It was pretty interesting. They spoke almost no English, but they could write in Latin lettering (Mongolian is Cyrillic). it was a pretty interesting morning, and I got a picture with the two guys. The woman didn't want a picture taken as her hair wasn't done (hmm..not so different after all).

The riverbed we were working along was fairly large, and had two trees growing in it, which surprised me. These are the first plants higher than a Meter I've seen in 28 days. I'd been told they were there, but I expected old dying decrepit brown things. These were large, lush, green thriving trees. The biggest we sat under and had lunch, watching the 3 hawk/eagle/large bird of prey chicks shuffle around up in their nest. The smaller of the two trees from a ridge

Sunset, and the Moon + Venus from a couple of weeks ago