The Tangerine Dream: hiking i will go...

Whats that? Ape is still alive?

Ok, ok. So I realize I have not been the best at keeping this blog quite up to date. I do have a bunch of old tales to catch you up on, but for now, please enjoy a small story about a hike I took back before winter maybe 3ish months ago...

A weekend hike

One Mongolian afternoon, I was sitting around school, and one of the math teachers came up to me and asked me if i liked walking. I said “of course,” which translated into, yes of course I want on a 10 mile hike/ game competition thing that you havent told me about yet. So I was told to pack warm clothes and my sleeping bag and meet at the town square. When I set off to do so with my pack upon my back, I was picked up by some fellow school hikers along the way in a car. They stopped at school to pick up a first aid kit and a flag, and I began to realize that I had no clue what was really happening, but it was something more then just a hike. I rolled with it however, and when finally making it to the town square an hour and a half after the ‘meeting time,’ there were multiple groups all gathered in matching uniforms to take this ‘hike.’ Once out of the automobile and gathered with the rest of the teachers from my school, I was handed a black and yellow jacket, and told to go line up in front of the government house. Pretty soon we were all instructed into a line, and began marching around the square three times. The square is rather large giving me plenty of time to laugh in confusion as I followed the person in front of me. After out three laps of respect, we set out to the main drag of BX, hiking along the sidewalk. People were taking photos and video taping, and I was still a bit clueless as to what I was actually getting myself into. Only one person in our group spoke a little english, but not enough to fully tell me what was happening, but I learned that there were to be competitions later in the day. So we hiked out of town and farther in a line of two by two taking many breaks along the way. I learned some small Mongolian field games, like “guess how many rocks are in my hand.” And I also learned that I really do not favor walking in any sort of distinguished line. Also given that I packed a snack of some raw carrots to share and tried to jump off every rock we walked past, my favorite quote from Mongolia thus far arose, “April like jump, April like carrot, April like rabbit.”

About 10 miles later, we reached a nice bank of the river and we were done with our hike. I we had to empty our packs, and from what I guess, we were judged on the contents. All very unclear. After we set up camp. My team brought a 2 person tent that was meant for our ten person team. The day proceeded on with competitions including a team sprint up the side of a mountain, some orienteering (that our team failed to complete), an obstacle course, tug of war, and a few others. All the directions were in Mongolian, so mainly I pretended like I understood, but just tried to follow my teammates the best I could without looking too much like a fool. Between competitions we cooked meals (meat of course) with an open flame stove in the middle of our tent, and drank water straight from the river. The night of course was absolutely freezing, and it was easily one of the top three coldest moments in my life. Much like the overpopulated car situations here, all ten of us squeezed like sardines into the two person tent, sharing the space (of course) with a sheep carcass that we were feasting on. Since I was the weak foreigner, I got the prime spot in the middle of the tent surrounded by body warmth. I don’t think I actually slept more than about 30 minutes the entire night because it was so cold. I remember waking up once, and honestly believing that I froze to death. It took me a few minutes to regain my bearings. In the morning time, there were more competitions, and later, by the afternoon someone had come to pick us up to drive us back to BX. All in all, even though it was a weekend of cold and confusion, at least it was certainly an adventure.