Half way!

Day 18

Distance traveled: 35.37 km

Day 19

Distance traveled: 31.18 km

Position: N45° 25 E103° 19

The small town of Togrog was just over 35 km ahead of us. Eric and I excitedly talked about what treats we should pick up. Because of the expensive cost of cargo, we had decided to pack out all our food (with the exception of 100 Camino chocolate bars) in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia.

For such a huge town we were surprised about the lack of selection. We spent an entire day testing different food; none were very exciting. But we settled on a meal plan of oatmeal for breakfast and either rice or ramen noodles for dinner, with various powdered sauces that all taste roughly like salt. For snacks we had our delicious chocolate bars from home and we picked up granola bars and a variety of dried fruit and nuts.

Leaving our start point of Altay, we carried with us all our basic food for the entire expedition, planning to stop in small towns along the way to pick up treats and extras. And we have stopped at a couple ger's for the occasional local meal, which pretty much consists of meat and more meat (we are never sure what kind of meat) with a warm drink of salty milk tea.

The winds were teasing us in the morning. They blew strong till we were ready to travel, then died down to almost nothing. We could hear thunder in the distance and it grew louder as the dark rain clouds moved towards us. We quickly threw our gear back into the tent and waited for the storm to pass.

After the storm passed, the winds were back up and we launched our kites and made our way towards the small town. Arriving after dark, we set up camp just outside of Togrog. In the morning we headed in. Our first stop was to pick up water. The well was very obvious with a couple of locals and a small herd of cows surrounding it. We waited our turn to fill up our water bags and asked directions to the store. Inside, Eric and I were like two kids in a candy store! We picked up some potatoes and onions (the only veggies they had) some bread and an over sweetened version of Nuttella and cookies!!

With head winds, we hauled out of the town. We attempted tacking back and forth till the winds died down, and hauled into the night We have passed the half way mark! As the crow flies, we have covered 554 km, with only 539 km till our end location!

Sarah