Expert - my ass.

I would have expected that our self-proclaimed expert guide would have been to the park we were touring more than twice - or at the very least - would have a general idea of where we were going.  Yep, not so much.  We first started out from our lovely tourist camp on this - the main road.  Let's say this, there is a lot of wide open space.

We had our share of bumps along the way.  This was probably one of the worst spots.  It's a very good thing that I don't get car sick - a lot of the time I felt like I was on the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland.

But not a big deal - right?

And then this happened.  And in the middle of nowhere.  Now, a few things to note about our situation:

• It was late in the day - around 5:00 pm.  It stays light until 8:00 ish, but it was going to get dark at some point.
• We had just dropped off all our gear.  In the car we had one 1 liter and one 16 ounce bottle of water.  That was it for supplies.
• We were about 30 kilometers (or a little over 18 miles) from the park headquarters.
• It was quite cold out, getting colder and starting to snow off and on.
• AND - did I mention that we hadn't seen another car for the 2 and a half hours we'd been out?

We were more than just a litte bit stuck. Much to Joe's dismay - Liv and I couldn't help but burst into fits of giggles.  Now, don't get me wrong - I did the mental calculations. Probably not the best situation to be in - but what do you do? 

Now we should have figured we weren't in the best hands when our expert guide had to stop and ask a herder for directions.  To hear Joe re-tell the story, we also had to fight off a pack of wolves.  As he put it - only two or three of us were going to survive.  That's probably a bit much.  Especially because we had passed a herder family that had set up camp a couple of miles beyond the ridge.  Still not too much fun.

I like to fancy myself as having a good sense of direction, but it's quite different when there is really nothing to mark your path against - and I wasn't paying too much attention on the journey there.  But we set off - not a lot else we could do at that point. 

And then, at the top of the ridge.... our rescuers magically appeared.  I really don't think I could have been happier to see anyone at that moment.  We had to pile into the truck to give it enough leverage to pull the car.  Luckily the shoe string sized rope held and we were saved! 

They were great and according to our guide they only laughed at us a little. They should have laughed a lot.  Of all the places, somehow our expert hit the only muddy spot in the place as evidenced below.

 The muddy culprit.



And then we were off again - armed now with an excellent story that gets more outrageous every time it's told.

Ah, good times!