Mongolia > Collision with an eagle

Get up. Breakfast with eggs and bacon. Today we’re driving along a route marked in red on the map to Choibalsan. Usually, this means a paved road, but it says nothing about the quality. Last night, we saw cars crawling along the road and mostly driving alongside it on a dirt path. This turns out not to be without reason. The asphalt is badly damaged. Large potholes make it impossible to avoid. We drive over them at a snail’s pace. Strange that such a stretch of bad asphalt comes right after the spot where we stopped.

Mongolia - A collision with a steppe eagle ends fortunately well

Fortunately, the road improves dozens of kilometers further on. Just before Öndörkhaan, a young steppe eagle sits on the road. Milko is leading. The bird is too slow to take off. With a loud thud, it hits Milko’s helmet. Fortunately, he stays upright, and the bird survives. Slowly, it picks itself up. We give it some water and chase it a little into the meadow, where it’s safer. To recover from the shock, we order a coffee in Öndörkhaan. Öndörkhaan is the birthplace of Genghis Khan. Leaving Öndörkhaan, an unpleasant surprise awaits: the road ahead is unpaved. The many tracks alongside the main path reveal just how bad it is.

Mongolia - A simple room in Khulunbuir

Our speed immediately drops. We hadn’t really expected this. There are still over 300 kilometers to go, so it’s going to be a long day. After about seventy kilometers, we reach the village of Bayan Ovoo. Just before the village, a fall: Milko slips. He gets a few scrapes. It’s not his day. In the village, we clean the wound. It’s already four o’clock, with at least five to six hours of driving left. We probably won’t reach Choibalsan today. For safety, we stock up on extra water and instant noodles. As we continue, dark clouds gather. A heavy thunderstorm passes over. Not a pleasant feeling in a hilly landscape with no trees. We are at the highest point. The road immediately turns into several streams. The water makes the road slippery. We decide to drive until around seven o’clock. It’s still 130 kilometers to Choibalsan. The grassland is soggy from the rain—not an ideal place to camp. Across the rivers, we see a village: Khulunbuir. According to the navigation, there’s no connection across the two rivers, but we can see a new bridge. In the village, we immediately attract attention, but is there a hotel? A nod confirms. We don’t know exactly where, until we end up at the town hall. Calls are made. It’s unclear what will happen until a man on a scooter gestures for us to follow him. In a small building, there are two rooms. Each has two beds—very hard beds, in fact, with mattresses that are basically planks, but fine for the night. We are all quite tired. We eat the instant noodles and go to bed early.