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Although we no longer had our car, we were still incredibly excited about what was in store for us. We unloaded all our useful stuff into the other cars, packed up 2drew's car, then headed on our way. It took a whole 10 minutes for us to pass the point we had made it to the previous day, and then the adventure continued. Off to the sides you could see massive herds of goats, and often you had to honk to clear them from the road. You also had Mongolians riding their small, but powerful horses along the herds, keeping an eye on them.

The scenery was absolutely incredible. We went from seeing scrubby desert to green riverbeds in a matter of minutes at various points. On either side were snow-capped mountains, and amazing blue skies. The roads were another matter. Mind you, we are taking the main roads that connect one place in this country to another, and they are all made of dirt. In most places they are incredibly wash-boarded, and the poor Skoda couldn't handle the wash-board at any speed. 2drew was the slowest driver I've ever been with, and we were constantly lagging behind, but he was intent on babying his car, even though it had not had a problem yet. Large rocks littered the road, and in many places jagged ones poked out of the road, just waiting to puncture tires. 30mph was a blessing when we could manage, but we averaged less I'm sure.

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At one point it started raining while we were in a green valley, and our four cars (Joe, us, Germans, Spaniards) pulled up to a Ger. Inside was a French family, two parents and their 17 year old daughter, who had been horseback riding around Mongolia. We spoke with them for a bit, and had a bit of tea with the Ger family who had about 6 young kids. Mongolian tea is...interesting...they put yak milk in it, and instead of sugar, they use salt. If you think of it as a broth, it is much more palatable. At one point the Ger Grandpa pulled out his little bottle of snuff and offered it around. About 5 of us took a little, and soon we were all laughing as our heads were suddenly blasted with a rush. 2 or three of us started sneezing uncontrollably, and the people in Ger laughed and laughed at us. The feeling lasted a few minutes, but we can definitely chalk that up to a new life experience.

Soon we were back on the road, and we saw a jeep from Mongol Charity Rallies (a similar rally to our own) stopped in the road. It was being driven by two Mongolian guys, and they were out of petrol. The Spaniards gave them some, and we soon learned why there were Mongolians driving the rally car: the gearbox had been destroyed, and the jeep only worked in reverse. The rally team had paid these two guys to drive the car from Olgii to UB, and these guys were more than willing. One guy operated the pedals, while the other one stood and looked out the back, reaching back and steering. Surprisingly, they were going quite fast, and made much better time than we did.

A short distance later we came upon our first river crossing. We waited for a van to go through to see the best point to cross, and we found one that wasn't too shallow. The seisciento went first (Rubiks Cube), and they successfully made it while we all cheered. Next came us in the Skoda. I told 2drew that he needed to make sure to have enough momentum to push the wave out in front of the car, but I suppose I should have been more specific, saying not to let the wave come up over the hood. We made it out the other side, but soon the car started sputtering, and then died. The Germans immediately told him, "you were going too fast!" This, however, was not the best thing to tell our passive-aggressive companion. His response was, "I was going to go slow, but somebody told me to go fast." Well, I guess it was all my fault then, but we were lucky, and there was no water inside the air-intake. The spark plugs were a bit wet, but within a couple minutes they had dried sufficiently for the car to start again.

The journey continued, the road winding its way through barren rocky cliffs, with a thin, grassy riverbed nestled in the valley below. The cars ahead of us were having a blast, flying through the curves and along the road, and soon we were left driving alone at our grandma pace. Andrew asked if 2drew wanted to switch out driving, but he responded, "No, I'm really enjoying this," which completely contradicted his pace, facial expression, and complaints about the road conditions. He obviously had problems with our driving the car, and we hoped it wasn't because of the state our car was in when we let it go. We weren't driving the car inappropriately, it just gave us problem after problem. After driving alone for awhile, the Spaniards finally turned around to see if we had broken down. They told us how they had no problems so far, and that it would be fine to drive faster. As if to prove 2drew correct, though, the Twingo blew a tire about 5 minutes later. As with most mechanical problems on the rally, it was somebody from another car that fixed the problem. Within minutes, the Germans had their jack out, had replaced the tire, and hammered out the rim. In the brief wait, Andrew had managed to find a wonderful horse skull on the side of the road, and before long had it zip-tied to the front of the Skoda. This was, of course, after protest from 2drew, saying that the skull would scratch the hood. It did, but it's a rally car!

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We got the cars back in working order and set back out on the road. This time I jumped into the Rubiks Cube and went for the ride of my life. Joe drove with the heart of a maniac, purposely smashing into every large puddle we could find, and flying around the curves. It was such a relief after the painful hours of crawling along in 2drew's Skoda. Joe insisted that his little .899 was a beast, and I truly think that it is. We didn't go too far before we stopped again, and about eight rally cars bottle-necked in a pass next to a couple restaurants. Sadly, the Twingo had hit a rock at some point, and coolant was pouring onto the ground. All the people hopped up to help, and somebody had some sort of bonding liquid to plug the hole. We had to wait for it to set, so we all went to eat. The house had about 5 or 6 kids running around, which I've found to be quite common. I think part of it has to do with their being nothing better to do than to have kids, but I also heard that the government is encouraging people to have children because the population is so small. Mongolia actually has the lowest population density of any country in the world. Something like 1.2 people per square mile.

The lunch was a delicious meal of dumplings, but they hand-made all of them while we waited, so by the time the meal was complete, we were running out of daylight. We drove a bit farther up the road, and discovered a small grassy area next to a river where six teams were already set up. We were even able to find wood to make a fire, so we all set up camp, cooked our various meals, and sat down by a nice roaring fire. We were all pretty exhausted by this time, so many of us went to bed quite early. I was excited because it was the first night I would have a sleeping bag again. I went to bed with a lot of my warm clothes still on, and actually woke up sweating! Oh, how wonderful it was to be warm again!

We were awake quite early, and ready to hit the road soon after. Andrew and I are both Eagle Scouts, and we grew up camping; we definitely know how to break down camp early and get moving. The story was a bit different with our Spanish and German friends, particularly the Spaniards, where everything is "manana." Stereotypical? Sure. But it fit so well with our lovely friends Juan and Nuria. We decided to hit the road before them while they cooked up a breakfast, as we needed to run some errands in town, and they said they only needed to get some petrol. We ran our errands, then saw our friends in town while they went to repair a tire. We were quickly done, yet found ourselves waiting for another couple hours. We met an amazing American girl while we cooked lunch on the roadside. She said she was doing research on weather patterns and water conservation, and she took us to the market for some fresh fruit while telling us about all the time she's spent in Mongolia. We got back to our car to meet the Spaniards, and even after all this time they still weren't ready; they needed to eat lunch.

We couldn't believe it. They were the ones that had almost nothing to do, and we had waited for hours. We said that since 2drew was so slow in the car, that we'd go on ahead, and that they would probably catch up to us. Joe and Tim joined us, and soon we were back on the road. While filling up at the petrol station we ran into our old friends Mike and Graham from Georgia. We were incredibly excited to see them, and they told us about driving back several hours to scour the Mongol Rally graveyard for tires for their friends. Their friends had blown three tires within about 15 minutes, and were waiting up the road toward Altai for the tires to be delivered.

We started driving for awhile, with me in the car with Tim, and Joe riding in the Skoda. Tim was blazing through the roads, just like Joe the day before, although his driving skills I don't think were quite up to standard. Even so, he was fine, and the problems he had actually didn't have so much to do with his driving, as they did the roads in Mongolia. We had been driving maybe an hour and a half when Tim kicked up a large rock underneath the car. He shut off the car, and we got out to make sure nothing was leaking from the car. When we got back in the car, the engine shuddered a few times, then died. Then we couldn't get it to turn over at all. Out of impatience, Joe had filled the car with 80 octane, and we were pretty worried that his had wrecked the car. Andrew and I were pulling apart the fuel injector and putting 95 directly into the engine, but nothing we could do got it to work. We had even sent 2drew ahead to get some octane booster from the people waiting on the Mongol Kings, but their can had spilled all over the car, so we were out of luck.

We had been there for about 2 hours at that point, and finally the Spaniards and Germans showed up. We then continued our work. We started clamping off the fuel lines, and we were trying to disconnect the lines from the engine, in order to bleed the system. We managed to do that, but there was still no luck, and we realized the fuel pump was not working. We were baffled at this point, and then a Mongolian truck pulled up, and the driver was completely hammered. He was swerving everywhere, and nearly ran into Tim. He didn't help us in any way, but he did manage to make a mess of all our tools, as well as being a general nuisance. After all this work, we were no closer to a starting car, when suddenly Juan found a switch underneath the dash. This switch resets the computer, which had turned off the fuel pump because of the impact of the rock. Most cars have this safety feature so that in car wrecks, the fuel pump isn't flowing more fuel in case of a fire. We flipped the switch, and sure enough the car started. More hours just wasted.

We drove about 30 minutes more when Tim blew a tire. I hopped out and fixed it in a matter of minutes, but looking at the other tires showed a grim prospect. They guys had no more spares on rims, one rear tire was cracked, the other had a bubble, and the front tire we didn't replace had such a bent rim that air was leaking. Joe realized that he would have to baby the car, going about 10 mph until we reached the next tiny town on the map. We just had to hope that they had a place to repair tires there. The sun was going down, so we went ahead to find a suitable camping spot. Before we got there, the metal guard underneath the German's car broke a weld, and it began dragging on the ground. We only traveled a small distance, and it was nighttime once again. We had wasted nearly an entire day, with almost no ground covered. We set up camp on the side of the road, cooked our meals, then went off to bed. This time Andrew said he would wake everybody up early, and make sure they got up. Hopefully we would be able to make more distance the next day...

Look for the final blogs about the end of the adventure this week. Also, check out Shutterfly for more of our pictures from the whole journey. Just go to www.teamflatlanders.com and click the Shutterfly link underneath the LJworld Blogs link. The journey has nearly come to an end!

---Team Flatlanders