After we’d brought our friend Zdenko to the bus station of Murun, we returned to the west shore of Khuvsgul Lake to join the Shaman festival. When we arrived at the festival, there was not much going on, but we were patient and slowly things started to happen. We met again with one of the oldest active shamans in Mongolia who has a long shamanic lineage. For the festival, she wore lots of medals on her dress.

There was a lot to see and hear. Singers…

…dancers…

…having fun and giving a nice and interesting performance.

We talked a bit with the locals and had a good time witnessing the Mongolian festivities.

There were a lot of speeches in which locals and foreigners were praised and thanked. The elderly woman with the grey hat was from Switzerland and was one of the first foreigners who had met the shamans at Khuvsgul Lake decades ago. Back then, she had followed a vision which led her to the shaman people.

A lot had changed since then, and it was interesting to learn about the history of these people. Since the Swiss lady had been with the shamans, she had become a student and gotten into the shamanic rituals, beliefs, etc. Before that, she had already been with the natives of North America for years.

About thirty years ago, there had been no artificially produced stuff in that region around Khuvsgul Lake. The locals produced and manufactured everything on their own. No plastic, no materials that would not rot. When plastic arrived, the locals did not know anything about it, and the Swiss lady had a hard time explaining to them that plastic would never rot. The locals could not understand that at all, and only when she told them that plastic would hurt their horses did the locals understand, take it seriously, and mostly stop throwing plastic into the environment.

The connection between the Mongolian shamans grew, and the foreigners visiting them spread their beliefs, rituals, and ways of life to Europe. There was some financial support as well, and at the festival, a lot of people got honored for their help.

For the kids, there were lots of free sweets!

The festival continued with traditional wrestling, which was very interesting to see.

We only witnessed the youth wrestling because the schedule and locations where things were happening were often pretty unpredictable (even though there was an official schedule). But there were horse races and more as well.

Before and after each fight, the fighters performed a short ritual which reminded us of a bird of prey flying around a pole in the ground. It gave the fighting a nice, cultural, less violent touch.

In between the festival activities, we hung around with our host and our friends Merel and Leon. All of us stayed in our cars at the yurt camp of our host. She was a very interesting Mongolian lady who had some trouble with her camp and a very honest way of communicating.

So we learned a lot about her life, Mongolia, her daughter studying in Germany, and lots more. I think it was very nice for our host to have us around, talk about what was going on in her life, and maybe have some input from very different people like us.

Our highlight was the shamanic ritual we witnessed one morning. We got up early so as not to miss anything, but in the end, the whole ritual started a bit late.

It was very fascinating. First, every participant built up a little personal space in front of the animal totem that stood for their birthdate. The personal space consisted of a small altar, milk, vodka, sweets, a drum, a shamanic costume, and several other things. Every participant had an assistant helping with everything.

Every participant sacrificed some of the stuff he brought with him at his altar. After that, everybody started meditating and playing the jaw harp to get into a trance-like state. The golden plate, this lady was wearing, was acting as a shield in the “trance world” which was supposed to protect her from bad ghosts.

After that, the personal assistant of every participant helped to put on the shamanic costume which connected him to his “natural side/self”, blindfolded the participant, and sprayed some milk and vodka on him.

The next step was putting on a shamanic mask.

And after that, the energetic, trance drumming began, which, depending on the individual participant, got pretty intense. Some shamans needed assistance so as not to lose all connection to their environment.

After the energetic part, they calmed down and told their assistants what they had seen, witnessed, and experienced in their trance states.

There was a lot of milk involved and it was a very nice ritual.

And I liked how these people got into it and how their beliefs brought them together. It seemed that they got something from it that connected them to their natural selves.

Once more we met our friendly host and then it was time to continue our journey with all the impressions we got from the shamanic festival.

We made it in time to our meeting with Zdenko, our very good friend, whom we have met so often while traveling already. He was just walking through Japan with a self-built small trailer which he was pulling while walking.

He decided to take a detour and visit us in Mongolia and it was awesome to see him again!

After we picked Zdenko up, we continued our trip to Khuvsgul Lake which was not that far anymore. Zdenko and I were sitting in the front of Rosinante and Racki in the back. So I tried my best to make Rosinante not jump and tilt around, which was not that easy.

Our first night we spent close to the southern villages of Khuvsgul Lake: Zdenko in a tent and Racki and I in Rosinante.

The next morning, we continued north on the east side of the lake. This lake was huge! We had to take an offroad track (of course) which was first stony and then got more and more muddy.

On our way, we met a German tourist with his German-speaking guide and asked them about the track conditions ahead. They were pretty positive about it and showed us on the map the points from which the tracks on the western and eastern sides of the lake would get really nasty.

We continued and passed some impressive yaks. The track got more and more muddy and we followed some big trucks that were going in the same direction as us. I had learned that following the locals can be very beneficial, and especially heavier and bigger vehicles can be very helpful in finding the easiest track for fat-ass Rosinante.

In the end, we made it to a magnificent camp spot, but the way there was not so easy. The two trucks showed us a good way through a couple of muddy sections and several river crossings. In the last river crossing, one of the trucks broke some of its leaf springs, but the driver was confident that he would make it further and back to town.

So we left them behind and continued our offroad trip through some more nasty, muddy parts. After a couple of hours already, I was feeling like arriving would be nice, and at the same time, I really wanted to get to a very nice camp spot to make offroading worth it.

But it continued to be not so easy. It took us quite some time to scout on foot, investigate satellite photos, etc., to find a track that would lead to the shore of the huge lake. But these last three kilometers were quite swampy and we had to scout and push through several times to not get Rosinante’s fat ass stuck somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

After some more pushing, and especially one pretty crazy push through the last swampy part, we had made it!

And the spot was amazing!

We had a new bird friend who was living right next to us and hunting just a couple of meters in front of us.

The weather was quite fresh but super nice in the sun, and even the rainy hours felt refreshing and nice.

When we did a hike around the cove where we had parked, a young reindeer just approached us, coming out of the woods. She was absolutely trusting and friendly, and we loved her!

So she joined our gang and we gave her the name Clicky because her joints were sometimes making very distinct clicking sounds when she was walking.

Clicky was very photogenic!

And the water of the lake was amazing!

We met some dead friends and of course…

…the horse gangs, who were the most fearful of all. Zdenko loved seeing and taking photos of all the animals and the nice views.

We spent several days at this nice spot and had a good time.

And then came the day of going back… I had some thoughts about how we could make it back through the swampy parts…

So we scouted our options and thought about it. In the end, I said that putting on the snow chains wouldn’t take much time and would be a kind of insurance that we would make it.

I started Rosinante and let her warm up all the way because we knew we would need all the power she had. And we really needed all her power! It was crazy, and I really have to say that it would have been nice to have a drone video of this! When the tricky part started, I pushed Rosinante in her second low gear to about 3000 rpm, and soon it became clear that these snow chains were absolutely necessary. When we were losing momentum as she started jumping through this swampy meadow, I pushed her up into the red and she was really milling through this swamp! Dirt, grass, and water were flying all over Rosinante, and in the end, after some drifts and pushing more, we made it!

We went back along the track we came from days ago and met some more friends. Zdenko was driving Rosinante as well and had a good time trying offroading in a car for the first time.

After lunch and getting groceries and water, we went up the western shore, which had much better roads. At a shamanic place and small camp, we met some reindeer herders and shamans. They told us that in a couple of days there would be a shamanic festival, and Racki and I decided to attend it.

The reindeer were super cute and friendly. And their horns were warm and pulsating.

In the end, the western coast turned out to be fully packed with yurt camps. It was not possible to find a nice wild camp spot, so we continued and continued. The very nice asphalt road turned into a construction site. We had to take a detour close to the water of the lake and through a muddy forest… It was Mongolian!

In the end, after all the camps and really bad tracks, we made it to an awesome camp spot!

And had one of our signature meals: wraps with Pampe (self-made spread).

One day, we did a super nice hike! From the top, we could see the size of this lake. Some key facts about it: it sits at 1,645 meters above sea level, stretching 136 kilometers long and reaching 262 meters deep; it holds 70% of Mongolia’s fresh water and 0.4% of all fresh water on Earth; it’s two to seven million years old, formed by tectonic activity, and it completely freezes over from late November through May with ice up to 1.5 meters thick!

The locals drive cars and trucks on it in winter! And some ended up at the bottom. In this photo, in the top left, you can see a huge ice floe floating on this magnificent lake!

We loved it!

And look at this water! Our camp spot was just on the right side of the photo at the shore.

The surrounding mountains looked astonishing!

On our way back, we caught some rain, but we were happy about this hike!

And the weather continued to look awesome!

For our last days, Zdenko surprised us with a night in one of the many, many yurt camps. So Racki and I got our own yurt! It was very interesting, and of course, I kept practicing playing guitar every day.

The yurt had a wood stove to heat it up and a couple of nice details.

Our host was a very interesting, friendly, talkative, and honest Mongolian lady. More about her in the next post. Merel and Leon joined us as well and slept in their ambulance, and together we went for dinner in one of the nearby restaurants. Our host was translating and helping us a lot, so we learned a lot of interesting things about Mongolia.

In the restaurant, we came very close to our bird friends, but we preferred the living ones.

And after nine days, Zdenko had to leave and head back to Ulaanbaatar. We loved the time with him, the inspiration and stories we exchanged, and we are absolutely sure that we will meet again!