The Great Canadian Beavers

Dancy here, writing from my new apartment in Halifax, my dog in my lap. It’s been a bit overwhelming heading back to Canada in what seemed like a crush of people after over 2 weeks of exclusively fields and nomads. The 27 hour ordeal of traveling back home also didn’t help. Still, once  in Our Home and Native Land I promptly went out to dinner at a 24 hour place at 3 in the morning and stuffed my face full of fast, greasy food. A lot of it (I still hurt). Sorry Mongolia, your dumplings were great the first few times, but they wear thin fast.

Speaking of Mongolia, let’s start where we left off. We were all a bit beaten down after or little crash mishap, and spent the night in Altai. What a night it was! A bunch of other ralliers were there, many whom we had met (if briefly) before, Jizzy Disco and Nomad Feat among them. We all ended up in a Mongolian Karaoke bar, and were regaled with gems like Krishan’s rendition of Gold Digger or Nick and the Backflip’s “Build Me Up, Buttercup”. After a few, I couldn’t help but join in either (I never met a karaoke bar I didn’t like). 

Luckily for our hangovers, the next day was forced to be a slow one as Jamie’s dying van was born again by getting the front wheel fixed. There was a short-lived funeral for our little Max as well, because he wouldn’t even start with a push start. One fuse swap later, though, he too was resurrected and we all rejoiced (push starting still required). And then we were off! — about 10 km away to camp, since we were all afraid night driving would lead us to parts unknown in the Gobi Desert. That night ended up being a surprise party as well, with everyone loading into Krishan’s tent to bother him — all 8 or so of us ended up sleeping there (according to Krishan, my elbows are deadly.)

The next few days that followed were the dustiest of all. DUST EVERYWHERE EVERYWAY EVERYHOW. Dust on our bags. Dust on our food. Dust on our dashboard. Dust up our nostrils, on our face, under our fingernails. And not a shower in sight. Ourmeager baby wipes merely turned the dust into mud. Days and days of dust.

We all kept pushing forward though, with only one brief split from the convoy when Andrew and the Ambulance pushed on ahead for about a day. During this time, Face Race suffered their one major flaw this entire trip: a ripped fuel line. While waiting for it to be fixed (it soon was by helpful Mongolians who also fixed the Backflips’ fuel leak), we came across 2 of the most insane Mongolians I ever met. They pulled up in their Land Rover blasting Lady Gaga and soon gave us a dance party in the middle of the street. They got a little tetchy when the Backflips’ whisky wasn’t offered so freely, though, and we had to make a bit of a quick getaway. 

Later that night, the night of the 5 week party, we reunited with the Ambulance on what was to be our last camping trip. The next day, we drove our heads off trying to make it before sundown to UB — and we almost did! But seeing as we are The Lost Convoy, that was really never going to happen. Poor Chuck Norris, Jamie’s van, lost his life for good on 13 km from Ulan Bator. 13 km! It was literally around the corner, and not even due to his wheel weld issues. So Chuck was towed by an ambulance — both cars without breaks at night — into the finish line.

Admittedly, the finish was a bit of an anti-climax. First off, we missed it 3 times (ahem, Lost Convoy) and ended up driving straight into a Evil Mastermind Traffic Cop who decided to pull us all over for an hour or so for rowdy behaviour (except us, The Beavers, who kept on driving like the criminals we are). When we finally got to the finish line, there may have been one dozing man, but no one else. A bit discouraged, we packed up our stuff, got into a restaurant and then a hotel, and vowed to make the next day a real party.

In the end, the rest of my days in Ulan Bator were a real party, even the monthly “Dry Day” on the first of every month (weird, huh?). We all hung out, had some food and drink, went to the Black Market and local bars. My only regret is not being able to go to the shooting range, but the day we chose (our last day) it happened that they had no RPG (basically: rocket launcher) ammo, and so we decided it wasn’t worth the money. By the end of this amazing trip, everyone is such good fun and family — a planned reunion is in the works as soon as I can visit Andi in her new London home (which will be soon, promise guys!)

I would just like to thank everyone - friends, family, supporters, ralliers and convoy members for all your support, from money to advice to Joe’s tireless ability to fix whatever car problem. I love you all!