Meeting with Munkhzaya and appointment at the Ministry of Environment ...

We arrive in Mongolia on Wednesday, July 23rd and spend the night near the immigration service in Ulaanbaatar to extend our visa to two months the next morning. While we finalize the formalities for our visa, we note that three people look forward to our vehicle and its visual on the parking. One man comes to us and invites us to join him later in his office. We are a bit surprised but still decide to see him. He introduces himself as someone involved in the project to preserve the Gobi bear. This is a very uncommon specie and mostly unknown to the public as there are very few videos on this animal, which is among the most threatened in the world. We quickly checked his statements watching one of his videos, where we see the Gobi bear in its natural environment. The conversation begins and we explained to him the details of our project after which he proposes to take us to the weekend in non-tourist areas where we can observe a variety of wildlife. We understand that Munkhzaya has the same motivation as ours and seems overly concerned about wildlife preservation Mongolian. We are very excited to spend the weekend with him.
At the same time, meetings succeed. For example, while we were looking for a place to sleep, people working on construction sites offer us to drink a glass of Aygar (fermented mare's milk) and proposes us to spend the night on their land. This is a nice green area in the center of Ulan Bator, where they store their equipment and trucks. A yurt is installed on the land where a family lives and keeps the site. We spend a good time with them around "mantuun" (a kind of steamed dumplings) they prepare ahead. Then we learn that this company specializes in automotive signaling and the establishment of surveillance cameras. The owner of the company and its engineer managed to charge our gas cylinders Campingaz which is not easy in Asia.
Late Friday afternoon, we get Munkhzaya at his work and we go south via trails right out of the capital. He knows the region, having previously organized sightseeing tours across the country. To our surprise, the tracks are in good condition which can be explained by the lack of traffic since only local use them. We pass through spectacular scenery and sometimes perceive herds of horses, cows, goats or sheep that are often around yurts.
Munkhzaya has no tent and wants to sleep with friends. But night falls and we find a small yurt where Munkhzaya will stay overnight. On our side, barely settled into our 4x4, we feel swinging. Some sheep rub their body against the car. We try to chase them, then to move the vehicle, but nothing happens, they come consistently, we have to hope that the movements of the vehicle will rock us and we'll get to sleep.
Finally, the night is very short, since we get up at 5am before sunrise. Munkhzaya takes us on a mountain where it is possible to observe Alpine Ibex. Discretion is a must as they are very fearful and are quick to detect us. We see then cross the rocky slope with great agility, it's beautiful. We continue heading west and we stopped to watch a nest of vultures in which a baby is about twenty days. We stop in a yurt for lunch, on the menu, sheep with pasta.
By late afternoon, we stop at a place where Munkhzaya spent his childhood and he hopes to watch the wild sheep. Unfortunately, we do not see, but observe in these vast areas of rolling steppe, vultures, swift foxes, gazelles and many sousliks.
We are once again caught in the night and we decide to ask for hospitality in a yurt. The welcome is exceptional and the hostess insists even to prepare food. Mongolians still have a great sense of hospitality to travelers, who thanked them by offering sweets and exchanging a few words in Mongolian.
We go back to Ulaanbaatar and on the way we spend a little time with a young imperial eagle trying painfully to take its first flight. A little further, we help Mongolian people whose cars were stuck in the mud near a river. We spend the evening with Munkhzaya and his family to the capital.
The next day, we continue with the paperwork to obtain the visa of the next country we visit. We meet by chance Javza, a Mongolian woman who speaks French very well and with whom we get on well. We have lunch together and she invites us to spend the night in her parents' apartment in the center of Ulan Bator. She and her parents greatly appreciate the French, his father was a diplomat at the Mongol embassy in Paris.
In parallel, Munkhzaya gives us the contact of a friend who was part of the expedition to track the Gobi bear. He works at the Ministry of Environment and agree to receive us so that we present to him our project. He looks carefully at the video we made ​​about brown bears in Russia, and we discuss for a while about the situation of the Gobi bear. There are currently between 25 and 40 bears identified in the Gobi Desert. The lack of water and food is a major cause of its small population. He explains that the next expedition will probably take place in mid-September and we offer him to accompany them. We fear a refusal on his part, but ultimately, he said that the organization is in progress and he is not opposed to our participation.
We are very excited to be part of this team composed only with specialists who have many things to teach us.
Now the only problem for us is to get a longer visa because we normally leave the country on September 21, when the mission begins...
In the meantime, we are currently in Hustai National Park where we work with the team to make a video about eco-volunteering. This park who is located a few hundred kilometers from Ulan Bator, is the first to have reintroduced Przewalski's horse (or Takhi) on June 5th, 1992 with the help of the Dutch Association FPPPH (Foundation for the Preservation and Protection of the Przewalski Horse). 84 horses were reintroduced to the park in 8 years and they are currently more than 300. A detailed article will be published on our blog at the end of our mission.