The journey to Lake Hövsgöl left us completely exhausted. We spent 12 days and cycled 648 km riding at an average of 35 to 45 km per day, through trails of sand, mud, rocks, roots, crossing rivers carrying our stuff on the shoulders, fighting evil insects, dealing with an impending cold and in my particular case, having a terrible toothache that I will never ever forget. Reaching the 100 km stretch of asphalt that separate Hatgal village in the southern tip of the lake from the town of Mörön, felt almost like fantasy. After so many rough days , we welcomed the asphalt with utter enthusiasm. We were filthy, tired and it was only 100 km left to find a shower and a bed to sleep. Asphalted roads always take the charm away from a place, but the surrounding landscape on the way to Mörön was still amazing. Dense forests gradually disappeared turning again into vast expanses of steppe, which in some areas already started turning from green to yellow in the first week of September already.
It is a tale
To depart from Ulaanbaatar was much more than getting out an ugly city. Departing Ulaanbaatar was to get out of what we, urban dwellers, know as the very same "world". It was a relocation to a space and time that for us and for those who grew up and still live in cities, it is only part of a faraway imaginary planted in oneself through storybook reading or described images in the books of history of some distant time. They are only a mere 50 km which separate hell from heaven, reality from the tale, the crowded from emptiness. From chaos to serenity, as one goes deeper into the steppe, the magic fills your senses and time seems to gradually begin to stop. 200 km and, if there is still a vehicle to remind us about the modern world, the remembrance is completely extinguished by the time we get out of one of the few paved roads in the country and enter a different world, a past world. The Mongolian steppe is a lonely space that, with its soft shapes and subtle colors, encourages serenity and soothes the soul. In it, roads disappear and become tracks traced in the grass, forking one, two, three and up to ten times as one cycles on. Without signals, one needs to be guided by map and compass as sole means of reference to avoid becoming lost.
