Flaming Cliffs and Dinosaur Fossils

Today was a jam packed day. We visited with a nomadic family who lived in the middle of nowhere. We saw the inside of their gers, equipped with satellite TV! It reminded me of Africa and the Masai in the middle of nowhere who have cell phones. We took a short camel ride on the family's two-humped camels which is very typical for Mongolia. 

             

Here's a picture of my mom riding a camel. Look at that face on the camel! He wasn't too friendly... And some of the camels kept spitting at people! Ha. 

This was one of the gers of the nomadic family we visited. As you can see there is nothing around except for small sand dunes, their camels and the desert. 

From there we visited the Flaming Cliffs which get its name from the way the light reflects off the ciffs at sunset. Unfortunately we didn't see that but it was still pretty. The Flaming Cliffs are famous for dinosaur bones, and this location is where the first dinosaur egg fossils were found. Here's a picture of my mom and I with the Flaming Cliffs in the background. 

This is a better picture of the Flaming Cliffs. It doesn't get much more desert-y than this!!! 

We also met with a Mongolian paleontologist who showed us dinosaur fossils in their natural habitat. This area of Mongolia is protected so no one can take the fossils. In fact, the airport scans all suitcases to make sure no one is taking fossils from the country. Below is a picture of a dinosaur fossil, possibly a vertebrae, that was found the other day just how it is pictured below. The pen is there to show scale. 

There are also fossils in the rocks themselves, pictured below. A person who isn't educated may overlook these rocks thinking the white is stones within the rock, but they are in fact dinosaur fossils. 

After another long drive and flight, we arrived back in Ulaan Baatar where we had a group dinner. We saw performances of traditional Mongolian music, dancing, and throat singing. The throat singing was my favorite, and we were told that this singing is created by making two sounds at once. It takes a lot of training and if you do it wrong, you can lose your hearing and/or hurt your voice permanently.