Here I am.

Sitting in Ulaanbataar after a whirlwind 12 day trip through Mongolia. A dream of mine I’ve held for as long as I can remember.

It finally happened and it’s hard to find the words.

For starters, we booked our private tour through SunPath Mongolia. Booking through them had been a compromise Christian and I had made. I would be able to enjoy gers, horseback riding, camel riding, and “rough it” a bit in Mongolia but also have all the comforts Sunpath could provide.

I worked with Doljmma to arrange every detail and picked a customized private tour that would take us through the Gobi Desert and South Eastern Mongolia. I was so happy to work with Doljimma because not only did she arrange a perfect tour and connect us with two perfect guides but she also saved us during our first full day in Mongolia where we had the Luggage Crisis to deal with. You can read about our first 24 hours in UB here.

Our guide, Galaa, and our driver, Dauka, were heaven sent.

I was nervous when they first put us into a Russian Van with no seat belts and told us “Everything is bumpy and we have six hours to the camp.” I looked at Christian apologetically wondering what I had done to us.

But as soon as got Christian’s luggage due to Doljmma’s hard hustling tactics and we bid her adieu as Galaa and Dauka told us to settle in for the ride, things started feeling good. We spent the first day on the bumpy paved road and two hours on an unpaved road. The scenery was out of this world.

Gers everwhere, goats, sheep, horses, cows. Mountains in the distance over miles and miles of green flatlands. Dauka driving through herds of livestock blowing his horn and somehow them knowing to get out of the way.

On the way to the campsite our first stop was at a store. We stocked up on snacks, beer, and vodka — as well as hand sanitizer and individual tissues for nature’s bathroom breaks. While in the store I thought it would be wise to use the restroom. I asked for it and Galaa smiled a bit them pointed me outside. In front of me was an outhouse. I looked at the outhouse and then looked at him.

“That?” I said.

He smiled more and held back laughter “Yes that.” This must be his favorite part of new tours.

I walked over to it, opened the door, and there was a hole in the ground with some lose (and in my opinion shaky) boards over the hole. I held my breath, pulled down my pants, squatted, and thanked my lucky stars that a year in Turkey had prepared me for this moment.

After I was done I asked Galaa if this was pretty much what I could expect. He giggled and said yes. I finally understood then why the tour package advertised Western toilets as a plus at each camping site.

Our bumpy ride continued.

Our first stay at the Tsagaan Suvarga Tourist Camp in a ger was better than expected, dare I say fun. Being me, I was paranoid with bugs, but surprisingly the open ger did not produce any scary ones (i.e- spiders, those came at the end of the trip), and the beds were comfortable. Internet was spotty and would remain spotty to nonexistent the entire 12 days. I would be comfortably off the grid.

After dinner I invited our guides to drink with us at night and thus began a nightly tradition involving beer, vodka, and lots of laughs.

The rest of the trip felt like whirlwind of a dream. A dream I’ve waited so long to live and now that it is over I am at a kind of peace that comes with crossing off items from your bucketlist. I’ll write more later and mulled over details of places stayed and tips, but for now my urge is to quietly reflect on the beauty of this place.