Ikh Nart Day 3: Chilling on a hot day

Recovering from the overnight bat hunt, I slept a while but it was really hot most of the morning - a 4-season sleeping bag is not ideal for chilling! After that I stayed around camp, just reading and people watching in the shelter until lunchtime.  Inside the ger, the furniture and roof poles are painted orange with colourful traditional patterns.

Hedgehog tracking this afternoon was not very successful - Tom could get a signal on one but it was too far away to go looking for it. We did go and sample the fizzy water from a healing spring near a tourist camp that's popular with Mongolians. It was a bit strange, but I thought it was not unpleasant, especially in the heat, though others didn't like it! This is the spring...

On the way back, we saw a bunch of argali rams with impressive horns:

Later on, we re-baited the small mammal traps and then watched a spectacular sunset - the sun goes down in the valley, you'd almost think it was the sea out there but really it's the plain, mostly gritty sand and fairly sparse grass and other tough plants...