The Gobi desert
I have left in those far-off deserts of Asia, something very precious that Europe can not give me back... freedom...Nicolaï Prjevalski
From one far end to the other, my road and my horse will slowly carry me through the steppes up to the Gobi desert in south Mongolia, then to the Ordos loop in inner Mongolia. Austerity of the vast stony plains in Mongolia, aridity of the Chinese sand dunes: I would like to meet the Mongolian nomads then the Chinese sedentary, attached to this environment by choice or by necessity, at the beginning of summer, exactly when the scorching temperature dries up your throat, showing how rare and precious water is.
My route will then shortly follow the Silk Road, from the Kun Lun mountains to the Indian Karakorum: a long trek across arid regions with a packhorse, getting gradually higher in altitude. A difficult approach whose reward, I hope, will be to share the natives' way of life, revealing perhaps the correlation between hard life, liberty, extremes and water...
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There is no Gobi as such, Gobis are in fact large and desolate depressions, with salted lakes at their bottom. A third of Mongolia is covered with Gobis and only 3 % are sand dunes, the rest being just long trails of gravel. The Gobi is a place of extremes with a lunatic winter, and temperatures falling down to - 50°C, while in summer they soar up to 40°C. |
Copyright |
Copyright |
This Mongolian Gobi is actually part of the great central Asian desert that stretches from the Chinese occidental border to east Mongolia, one of the biggest in the world ! The Tarim basin, inner Mongolia and the Taklamakan belong to that arid zone explored by Marco Polo, Guillaume de Rubrouck, Prejawlski, Sven Hedin, Ella Maillart and Peter Fleming, who have all followed the mythic Silk Road. |
