Dusk in the Gobi. A beam of light illuminates the plain, Green of the latest rains, and draw the shadows of the stores, round and white. The wind, In storm gusts, Bring the smells of aromatic desert plants, In full hatching. They do not have the penetrating smell of the thyme or the dulce of the basil, It is rather a kind of licorice without being. New odors and new sensations, like listening at night to whinstay from the semi -waring horses preparing for the boPer or take refuge from water in a hot yurt and with the smell of cattle, whose skins isolate it from the cold cold.
The desert door that almost costs life to Marco Polo It becomes green in summer with a mantle of grass that ensures the survival of animals and people. In the least populated country in the world, with about twenty heads of cattle per inhabitant, The capital of the central Gobi has only a few thousand residents and its largest supermarket is not the size of a neighborhood in the European capital.. Buildings of one height alternate there with the yurts or “ger”, the homes of the nomads that its inhabitants continue to consider the best option, out of habit, and also the cheapest. The capital of the south, with another few thousand, It spreads in small plots enclosed by wooden fences.. Within, one or two yurts and, as much, a small building of one height, They accommodate entire families.
A beam of light illuminates the plain, Green of the latest rains, and draw the shadows of the stores, round and white
In the softest part of the desert, extending from the south of Mongolia to northern China, a flower grows, that of the Gobi, And some insects and lizards live, A kind of gazelle or "zeer", eagles that perch on the ground in heat hours, the "Tarwaga" and always present Mongols horses, small but strong, They spend half of the year in freedom and the other half captured for their mounts. At dusk, The whining of the camel's young are heard calling their mothers, who share land with cows, sheep and goats, The base of the Mongolian diet.
In the Gobi there are hardly any roads, They are dirt roads where Mongols drivers test their expertise at speeds that make the strangers tremble. Many go in a kind of Soviet van of small and round headlights, chassis high off the ground and surprisingly strong wheels. They travel the roads at dizzying speeds, sometimes in groups to help each other, and thus reach the secrets hidden in its rocky plains. Like a canyon of clay soil that is reminiscent of the Colorado and has at its base colored hills similar to the famous Rainbows of China, or a chain of mountains that runs parallel to a gigantic, long sand dune.
On dirt roads, Mongolian drivers test their skills at speeds that make outsiders tremble.
But the most surprising thing about the Gobi is not the animals or the mountains, not even their nomads. The most wonderful thing is its enormous and changing skies, nature with capital letters. I do not know if the sky Gobi is bigger than others, but it is impossible to get tired looking, With cottony clouds of a thousand tones and shapes that at night show all the nuances of the universe. In summer, For a month, They are loaded with water and electricity, which makes them wilder and more imposing. Nonetheless, One does not feel small in the Gobi, but part of that whole. And with the sky and the infinite plain, The auditory and visual silence, that translates into mental silence.
With the sky and the infinite plain, The auditory and visual silence translates into mental silence
Traveling the desert of the Mongols is to move to another space and at another time. Communication with the civilized world is difficult. There is almost no electricity, Sometimes it is removed from small solar panels or, hopefully, of a gasoline generator. Nor coverage and the clock is a useless object. To enter the Gobi is to encounter the wildest nature of the purely simple, quiet the mind to let in stillness, the nothingness that its immensity offers.
