Day 11 to: Desert Camp, 82km, 1051km to date, 715m up, end elev 1317m

Again a very hard day.  There is a pattern here, the first 40 k was not bad, a bit of a light head wind, but then the wind hit, again up to 30knots plus right on the nose, made for a really hard 45km to lunch.   The day was supposed to be 153km - no way I was going to make another 71km into the wind, so I called it at lunch.  I was only able to make about 8 to 10 km/h against the wind so it would have been after 7:00pm before I arrived in camp - that’s if a truck’s wind-boas didn’t knock me over.  Road the truck to camp.  I made it to lunch, 8 of the riders didn’t make it to lunch.

On these Tda tours they have an expression of EFI, meaning the rider has risen Every F’ing Inch.  Today we established a revised version, Enough F’ing Inches. 

I’ve had variations of this happen a couple times: Our 25year old driver asks me how old I am, he seems to be impressed that I’m almost his grandfather age.

I’ve noticed that the Mongolians have a wonderful sense humour, very serious when they need to be, but otherwise always joking.

I’m impressed/amazed at the amount of livestock scattered over the countryside.  I have trouble believing that the countryside will support what I am seeing - there are always flocks of sheep, cattle, horses and camels around.  My understanding is that the land base is essentially a large communal ranch land. 

Still a couple pics of interest:

A graveyard in the middle of nowhere - with both “normal” headstones, and in the foreground, simple unmarked graves:

This is what you look like afterward, sweat, sand and a helmut:

Yes, we ran out of gas:

Our camp tonight is in the back livestock compound of a truckstop.  The outhouse is a 10 hole long drop, don’t have anything loose in your pockets, you won’t be getting it back: