We made it to Mongolia! Our border crossing near Tashanta took some time, but again everybody on both sides was very friendly and we had no issues at all. This time no interrogation or smartphone checking at all.

Tanja and Marcel in their green Landcruiser (aka Mojito) and Merel and Leon in Major (their converted ambulance) crossed the border a bit in front of us and, together with the Majors, we managed to get car insurance and a sim card directly after crossing the border from a Mongolian guy. The guy always wanted to strike a good deal, but in the end we agreed on deals that made all sides very happy. And the guy even came to our camp spot to bring us another sim card and car insurance for the Mojitos.

Together with the Majors, we went to a small lake that we decided would be our meeting point after crossing the border. We were all very happy to have made it through Russia and were curious about our adventures in Mongolia.

We spent two nights at that lake and had good fun together. The wind was very kiteable and so we got our kite out again.

Racki started our new water kefir, whom we named Mongo-Fir (aka Mongo).

The day after we had crossed the border, the border was closed because of the foot-and-mouth disease which was spreading from the southeast towards our direction. We researched and asked the locals, and it quickly became clear that our planned route through the city Ölgii would not be so easy and maybe even impossible because of roadblocks that got installed to stop the disease from spreading.

So we decided to take the northern main road of Mongolia. What a road… Before we started, we stocked up our supplies at the shops of the small border village.

So we started our journey on the northern road and… We had heard a lot about Mongolian roads from friends who had visited Mongolia before and I have to say, it’s all pretty much true. The biggest roads are tarmac and sometimes very good for kilometers, and sometimes very broken with potholes up to fifteen centimeters deep.

The northern main road we started on—and there were no alternatives because of the spreading disease—was not tarmac. It was just a gravel and stone off-road track for hundreds of kilometers.

But we liked it. Yaks on the road. Nice scenery.

From iOverlander and the map apps, we knew that we would have to cross a pretty big river that had multiple options for crossing. So Racki and I went faster than the others and scouted the best possible river crossing.

The two crossings that we took first were easy for Rosinante. And of course, we did them in a commendable manner: Racki walked them first. In the photo, you see the first crossing. The second was way longer and we had to drive along with the current in the river. It was interesting.

When we had crossed the river, we saw a police jeep driving by in the distance and waving at us. We drove a bit down the river to check the other option to cross because we thought that maybe it would be even better for the ambulance to cross there. But when we arrived at the crossing, a couple of policemen told us that we were not allowed to cross because on the other side, the foot-and-mouth disease was spreading.

So we tried to call the others and tell them to take the first crossing, but couldn’t reach them because of the weak mobile signal. We rushed to the first crossing, saw them on the other side, tried to make them cross faster—which didn’t work—and so we went to them and together we did the crossing again.

For Major, we had prepared a recovery strap on one of the other cars, but it was not necessary: everyone made it through the crossing nice and safe.

We kept driving for a bit more and found a place in the steppe to camp. Around us was nothing but the beautiful mountains in the distance.

We played some boules and had good fun with that.

After a while, we had come up with more and more exotic ways to play it. It was hilarious.

And beautiful.

When we continued the next day, Racki tried to localize the source of a disturbing plastic squeaking noise we had. It was not always an easy job to drive with her head in the footwell while driving on these off-road tracks.

Once I had to brake very hard to not nose-dive into a small ditch in which our tires would have just fit in perfectly, but all went fine.

But we were not able to localize the soure of that sound.

The track was sometimes pretty nasty with corrugations and stones, but manageable. More a matter of patience than crazy off-road obstacles.

And then we reached this wonderful lake!

The reflections of the mountains were amazing! Reminded me of Canada.

All three of us parked together, and we had a beautiful bird friend who was around us most of the time.

These birds turned out to be one of the most fascinating things in Mongolia for me. This majestic one we called Boris.

One day, Racki and I did a small hike to get a wider view. All the lines in the photo are potential off-road tracks from which you could choose. Some okay, some bad, some worse.

Merel and Racki did some jewelry craftsmanship together.

Together we fixed the tent fabric of Rosinante.

And after that was done, I found a leak in our windshield washer tank. Very satisfying.

We had a very good time together…

…at this magnificent place, Lake Uureg.

And we had an absolutely hilarious karaoke party as well! It was hilarious!

Our border crossing from Kazakhstan to Russia at the small town called Mikhailovka went very well. We had to unpack a lot of boxes and stuff from Rosinante, but the border officers let us do it together and so it was an easy thing to do. And the officers really checked the stuff we unpacked and it didn’t feel like a useless action like it had before on other borders.

The officers were a pretty young team of women and men and even though they couldn’t speak English or German the communication went very well with Google Translate. We had a short and friendly interrogation and had to fill out a form with information about our family and stay in Russia, and our phones got briefly checked and our IMEIs were saved.

After about three hours we were in Russia and happy about the nice crossing.

On the Russian side, we went to the first climbing spot at the east shore of the lake Kolyvanskoye Ozero. You can see details in the allclimb mobile apps.

When we arrived at the location, we were first a bit disappointed because the whole area was fenced and the main gate closed. But while searching for a camp spot in front of the gated area, we met a very friendly Russian couple who opened the gate for us, called the owner of the area (which was a children’s camp), and got us permission to stay for a couple of days.

Our camp spot was beautiful and just next to the climbing routes.

The routes were all in very good condition and on limestone crags which were spread over the area. It looked very nice.

We got quickly into climbing on these crags even though the Russian difficulty ratings were, as always, very optimistic, and in the shade the rock was sometimes too cold to touch for a longer climb.

During our stay, we met a climber couple from Russia who drove about four hours from their home town to stay for a couple of days in that climbing area to camp.

There were very interesting routes. Some felt a bit like tufa climbing in Thailand and Malaysia. On two routes I was suffering a lot. Especially one pushed me past my mental limit. I couldn’t say why exactly, but at one moment in the route, I just got very stressed and angry. But I survived, and Racki and I did very good climbing.

We continued our transit through Russia and went in the direction of a town called Belokuricha. In the town, we went for groceries which was interesting: they had all the western brands in the supermarkets. A lot of special stuff. We thought that it wouldn’t be like that. Paying was only possible in Rubles, which we had organized in Kazakhstan. The locals we met were very friendly and some were interested in what we were about to do in Russia.

In the town, we met again with Merel and Leon, our climbing friends from the Netherlands.

The climbing crags were located in a very beautiful and dense forest. It was a very nice and natural place.

The patterns on the rocks were amazing!

And we all had a good time climbing, with some frustrations and panic attacks and lots of joy.

The mosquitoes were crazy and the only things protecting us were mosquito repellent from Thailand and smoke.

Merel and Leon left after one day and Racki and I continued climbing for some more days. This route was my favorite one. I was not so used to climbing slabs, especially not slabs of this level, but I managed to do this route without a break even though it was very hard and I had to make use of the smallest steps or “enough-things” as we call them, that I had ever used. “Enough-things” is a combination of “nothing” and “enough” and should be part of the official climber’s dictionary.

And we celebrated our BenDy (BENni + cinDY) anniversary with drinks and a nice view.

We met a cute little friend in the woods and off we went in the direction of the border to Mongolia.

On the way to the border, we did only one more proper stop at a sightseeing spot called Mars.

The weather was changing a lot and the rocks looked interesting.

Everything was prepared in the style of old spaceships and planet Mars expeditions.

We took my little astronaut friend Astrid with us for some photos.

She’s a climber as well.

And likes to chill.

At this Mars place, we met Tanja and Marcel for the first time in real life after Racki had already been messaging with them for weeks about traveling and our China trip, of which we would do the entry border crossing together as an agency-guided group. They were nice and we already shared some nice stories about life and traveling.