Dream Trip 2009

Great Travel Moment

It was a bitter cold day in Western Mongolia when I hired a rundown van to take me out into the countryside to visit a nomad who was living near the top of one of the nearby mountains. I put on every layer I owned for the journey and climbed into the back of the van with my translator. We were cold. On the way out of the village the van stopped and someone opened the door and started throwing in goats that immediately started chewing the seats and going to the bathroom. ?They belong to the guy you?re visiting,? they said. This was a defining travel moment for me because at first I hated the goats, but after a few hours the van broke down in the snow and I was saved from the cold by huddling with the goats in the middle of the frozen steppe.