Saturday, September 01, 2012

The Skies Opened

I was already planning to do a post on this subject describing the storm that took us by surprise as we walked up a couple of miles to a hilltop monastery. That story has officially been usurped by the storm we had this morning which was by far the biggest electrical storm I have ever experienced.
First, a word about the Gobi. Any picture I have ever seen of the Gobi is of those tall carmel colored sand dunes, nearly always with a couple of camels thrown in or at least some footsteps in shadow. In actuality the Gobi bears little resemblance. Sure, there are two small areas with those dunes, but the vast majority is a massive spread of scrubby, green (at least in summer), low rolling hills that goes on seemingly endlessly with a faint network of tire track pairs spider-webbing across. I will say this: it is truly a miracle that destinations are ever found. It all looks the same. There are certainly no signs. You drive for hours on end without seeing so much as a Ger where the set of tire tracks your driver has chosen have branched off at least five times with no indication of which split to take. We played musical Ger while driving across the Gobi attempting to find our Ger camp. Everytime we saw one we stopped to ask directions. Of course not speaking Mongolian I have no idea how they give directions but there is arm gesturing, pointing and a lot of description but what could be the landmarks? See the fourth flat hill? Go over that rise over there and look for the next Ger to ask? It is truly mind boggling and I consider myself to be good with directions. Finding the Ger camp last night which consisted of a couple of very small buildings and about 10 gers which was hundreds of kilometers into the Gobi was easily the work of wizards and magicians - talk about a needle in a haystack!
So back to the storm. I'm awoken at around 6am by the loudest thunder I have ever heard - ever. I felt it vibrate through the floor of the Ger and shake the sides. I felt it come up through the short wooden legs of the bed into my pillow. And the amazing thing was it went on that loudly mixed with nearly as loudly for about an HOUR. Growing up on the east coast we had some decent storms and we were taught to tell the distance by the amount of time between the rolls of thunder. There was no time between any of these rolls save for milliseconds. We were enveloped. At first it was only thunder and wind... and then the skies opened. I know people like corrugated tin roofs for the sound of rain but I daresay they have never heard rain on the fabric top of a Ger before. It was the best sound and I felt happier than I have in ages.
Thank you Gobi and bim ba!

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