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While I had planned an itinerary to go to specific locations to see wildlife, I knew from experience that over any hill or around any corner one can encounter sights in Mongolia that will take one’s breath away and result in many requests for the driver to stop or at least slow down.
This trip was no exception. We left Arburd Sands for Ikh Nart, heading, I believed based on previous conversations and planning, almost due east across an area that I had not seen before.
We weren’t on the road for long when the “Stop!” requests started. Here’s what we saw:
A few hours later I saw a largish-looking city up ahead and couldn’t square it with what I had seen on the map. We drove around the edge of it.
When we came to the railway line and I saw the tarmac road, I realized what route we had taken. As it turned out, Khatnaa was not able to get reliable information on road conditions or weather on the route we were going to take and Jan had pointed out when we were discussing it back in UB that along the way was a type of mud that, if it rained (and it had been raining quite a lot) was very easy to get stuck in.
So Khatnaa did the sensible thing, which was to take the longer, but certain route north back towards Ulaanbaatar. The mountain behind Zunnmod in the photograph is Bogd Khan. On the other side of it is Ulaanbaatar.
We crossed the railroad tracks and picked up the main paved road south, which literally leads to China, and that I have traveled on quite a few times now.
Even though it at least tripled the distance we drove, it actually took less time to get to Ikh Nart because we could travel at 50-60 mph instead of 15-30mph that is all one can safely do on large stretches of the earth roads. Such is travel in Mongolia. If we had followed the original plan, we would have missed the Valley of the Horses. But I do want to check out that other route some day ’cause I know there will be something good there, too.
Once again, I’m listing small, affordable original oil paintings on eBay!
For the next week you can bid on any or all of three works. Two are 5×7″ and the bidding starts at $44.95. One is 4×4″ and starts at $34.95. These are one-of-a-kind originals, ready for framing.
Current listings:
2. River Otter
The next stop on the “artist’s tour” was Arburd Sands ger camp. This was more a “cultural” stop, than for wildlife viewing, but we got some of that, too.
This was the third time I had stayed at the camp and it was great to see owners Batbadrakh and his wife, Densmaa, again.
It’s always interesting to sit down at the easel again after a “lay-off”. This time it was over six weeks. Things feel awkward and thoughts of “Oh, jeez, will I remember how to paint.” flit through one’s head.
But it always works out. I get back in the saddle by doing a few small, warm-up pieces using my newest reference. This time I picked three different subjects that I thought had great light, so that I could work on light/shadow and value relationships. The first two were done in two sittings with a some additional tweaking after I’d let them sit overnight. The third took somewhat more time since I was also working to catch a likeness and keep the shadow somewhat high key.
The next ten or so posts will cover all the places I visited on this past trip, some familiar and well-loved and some new.
The two-week trip with Pokey emphasized the best wildlife viewing places that I’ve found. We headed west out of Ulaanbaatar on a sunny August morning….
and spent two productive days at Hustai, seeing lots of takhi and other wildlife. The wildflowers were still in bloom, too, which was lovely.
Little by little I’m getting caught up, but there are a couple of really interesting irons in the fire that I’ll be posting about in the weeks ahead that have taken a fair amount of email time.
In the meantime, there’s this trip I just took, during which I managed to find some sketching time, both in my journal and in my iPad.
First are the ones I did in my Moleskin sketch journal. They were pretty much all done in five minutes or less for the small ones and maybe twenty for the one that crosses both pages. Some were done during lunch stops, some at camp between drives. The cows and sheep were done at the home ger of my driver, where I got to stay overnight. That wonderful experience will rate its own post:
Since no one pestered me while I did the above sketch, I got out my iPad and did a couple more quick studies.
Before we left on our “wildlife tour”, Pokey and I had time to wander around UB. I took her to the Museum of the Chojin Lama. Since I had been in the temples before, I got out my iPad and did a little sketching of a few of the statues flanking the entry stairs of the main temple.
Five wonderful weeks in Mongolia just flew by. I managed to spend three of those weeks in the countryside: two weeks doing the “wildlife watching” tour with nationally-known sculptor Pokey Park and then a week of camping with a guide/cook and driver.
Lots of great reference and stories to match will be posted here in the weeks to come, but for now I’m still catching up and working on a couple of new projects, about which more later.
In the meantime, here’s a collection of the photos that have me in them, most taken by our great driver/guide, Khatnaa, who brought his own camera and who definitely has an eye as a photographer.
I just returned the day before yesterday from this year’s trip to the countryside. I’m a little wiped out at the moment, so this will be a short post, but I wanted to check in, post a couple of images and say that there will be more, a lot more, after I get home and have time to absorb and process the past two weeks.
Nationally known sculptor Pokey Park joined me on the tour of the best wildlife watching places in Mongolia. We had a great time together and I’m really looking forward to seeing her first Mongolian animal subjects, not only wildlife, but also the domestic cashmere goats and yaks.
It seems that each of my trips ends up having a theme, one subject that I get more and better reference of than any other. This time it was the Mongol horses. We encountered group after group of beautiful horses in all kinds of colors and markings.
We also had great sightings of takhi, argali and ibex.
Daraa uulzii! (See you later!)
Susan Fox, American Artist 