Institute for the Study of Mongolian Dinosaurs director Thea Boodhoo is documenting our latest mission in the Gobi. (You can help us cover some of the costs.)
The sun is out. If the roads are back open today, we’re heading to Bulgan Soum (and the Flaming Cliffs tomorrow if all goes well) after I forget how many days in Dalanzadgad waiting for the snowstorm to pass.
This was before it got bad. There’s no pavement under there.
It’s been the biggest storm of its kind here in at least ten years, they’re saying. At one point, thirty-five people were missing in the area, and one still hasn’t been found. Many nomads were caught off guard and their livestock are now at risk, lacking access to food.
If we’d left a bit earlier for Bulgan Soum, we may have beat the storm, and we were kicking ourselves at first for that, but now we’re hearing that the homes we planned on staying in have become shelters for rescue personnel and that the Flaming Cliffs are completely inaccessible.
We’ve spent our time here in Dalanzadgad well, though. Planning and paperwork have made great progress and we’ve come up with tons of ideas for the museum together over endless khushuur and suutei tsai at the hotel restaurant.
We were even able to set up a dinosaur workshop at a school in town.
“Dinozavr? Dinozavr bish?” is a question Binderiya asks students during workshops. Plesiosaurs are “dinosavr bish.”
The “Minii Dinosavr” (“My Dinosaur”) assignment asks students draw whatever they think a dinosaur looks like. Dalanzadgad kids are pretty sharp on this one.
Dinosaur toys are taken for granted in some countries.
All the kids got Bayanzag flyers at the end. They were stoked.
Will we make it to the Flaming Cliffs before we have to return to Ulaanbaatar to catch our flights home? It all depends on the weather and the road conditions.
If nothing else, at least we discovered a dinosaur while we were here.
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Posted: March 26, 2017 by Bolortsetseg Minjin
The Waiting Game
Institute for the Study of Mongolian Dinosaurs director Thea Boodhoo is documenting our latest mission in the Gobi. (You can help us cover some of the costs.)
The sun is out. If the roads are back open today, we’re heading to Bulgan Soum (and the Flaming Cliffs tomorrow if all goes well) after I forget how many days in Dalanzadgad waiting for the snowstorm to pass.
It’s been the biggest storm of its kind here in at least ten years, they’re saying. At one point, thirty-five people were missing in the area, and one still hasn’t been found. Many nomads were caught off guard and their livestock are now at risk, lacking access to food.
If we’d left a bit earlier for Bulgan Soum, we may have beat the storm, and we were kicking ourselves at first for that, but now we’re hearing that the homes we planned on staying in have become shelters for rescue personnel and that the Flaming Cliffs are completely inaccessible.
We’ve spent our time here in Dalanzadgad well, though. Planning and paperwork have made great progress and we’ve come up with tons of ideas for the museum together over endless khushuur and suutei tsai at the hotel restaurant.
We were even able to set up a dinosaur workshop at a school in town.
Will we make it to the Flaming Cliffs before we have to return to Ulaanbaatar to catch our flights home? It all depends on the weather and the road conditions.
If nothing else, at least we discovered a dinosaur while we were here.
Category: Blog Posts, English