Today was the stretch of Mongolian driving that we’d been warned about. “The worst roads in the country,” they said; “I begged for the drive to be over,” chimed in others. But we’ve driven on Kazakh sand roads and Kyrgyz cowpaths! We thought we could best anything Mongolia could throw at us! However, there was one thing we hadn’t considered: washboard roads.
Hundreds and hundreds of kilometers of washboard roads. Hours upon hours of bouncing up and down in our seat, feeling every screw in the Panda being worked loose by the cruel road surface. Slowing down in an effort to lessen the effects of the non-stop rattling, followed by speeding up to try to get to the end of the torture sooner, followed by slowing back down when the road got too physically and mentally overwhelming.
Our torture was temporarily postponed for lunch. None of us were hungry, but all three teams welcomed the opportunity to force down food just because it meant we weren’t driving. While we were stopped we met a couple new friends, as a Mongolian family pulled over their motorcycle to chat with us. We didn’t understand a word that the man was saying, though that didn’t stop the man for talking to us for nearly 45 minutes in a Mongolian monologue while we hoped that we smiled, laughed, and looked concerned at the appropriate pauses. After the Mongolian tradition of the woman presenting us each with a cake of dried curds, we jumped back into our cars to continue heading east.
By the time we made it into Altai, the Panda’s check engine light and oil light were blinking. We pulled into Mongol Rally Auto Service to ask about these lights, but we got a straightforward response: “You have two gauge lights blinking? After that drive all of the gauge lights in this car are blinking, and so are my eyes, ears, and brain! I’m sure your sensors are just a little rattled, but you’ll be fine to continue on.” And, based on that professional advice, we continued on.
Starting Point: N47°05 E92°55 Ending Point: N46°20 E 97°18 Distance Traveled: 247.8 miles