July 17 (Thursday) – Yol Valley

Only one stop today but it is an hour and a half away.  Lots more driving through the Gobi.

As we passed one village we noticed statues of ibex on a couple of small hills.

The long drive took us to a range of small mountains. 

We are driving to Yol Valley.  At the entrance they had a control gate and a small museum, the South Gobi Natural History Museum.  It was pretty small, and we were through it in about 15 minutes.  The museum was primarily stuffed animals from the Gobi area.  

Then it was the drive through a very picturesque valley with wonderful rocks and peaks and vegetation all along the way.

We eventually got to the trailhead where there was a pretty full parking lot, some bathrooms and a few souvenir shops. 

Right at the trailhead there was a corral and many Koreans mounting horses for the ride into the valley.  We opted to walk.  

After a short while Mary sent everyone ahead.  She is slow with her bad knees plus there were a lot of wildflowers and she was interested in getting photos.

A little closer look at some of the flowers.

We saw a number of adorable picas along the trail.  They are actually related to rabbits even though they look a bit more like rodents.

And a few small sparrow-like birds.

But the main attraction was the beautiful valley.  It was quite narrow and the walls were very high.  Mary only went to just inside the main entrance of the valley.  

The others went a good bit farther in.  Rainbow, Jessica, and Liam went further than Paul, which required a bit of scrambling over the rocks.

While wandering around taking pictures a gentleman stopped by and insisted on taking Mary's photo.

Everyone met up when Mary was about halfway back to the trailhead. 

We all hit the bathrooms (pit toilets) before heading out.  Some of them even had reasonably clean seats instead of just the hole in the floor.  This one was interesting, indicating that the men’s bathrooms were around the back of the stall.  Turned out to be open-air urinals on the back. 

We then hit the long drive back…bumpy as usual. 

Just as we were getting ready to head over for dinner it started raining.  It was pretty light and didn’t last long.  But we were surprised to see rain in the Gobi.

Today was Jessica’s birthday.  We congratulated her while we were all sitting in a gazebo on the restaurant patio.  Rainbow was quite interested…and at the end of dinner one of the wait staff pulled out his two stringed instrument and played a lovely version of Happy Birthday.

And they brought out some small cakes with candles.  So Jessica had a nice birthday party.  Somehow we don't have photos or videos of the celebration.