May 26th: Dunhuang to Gobi

Today was our toughest day yet! We slogged through 300km of rough off-road, most of it completely off course. We took a wrong left turn and went down 100km of dirt road and incomplete highway finally ending in a rock quarry with a large log blocking the entrance. Our stubborness pushed us to move those logs and carry on while a dog ran after us as we drove further into what was obviously not our route. The quarry ended and undulating hills and river beds of the gobi desert lay ahead of us. We powered through for a full hour in the compass direction of the nearest waypoint. To our surprise and relief we hit a road again! We chose to turn left onto it again and it brought us right back to the correct route. Our hard-headedness had paid off and we only lost about 20 minutes. We did another 150km of offroading out of inner mongolia and into the xinjiang uyghur autonomous region to take us to our campsite. The 40km/hr winds picked up all the sand kicked up by passing cars and filled our faces with it. With clouds overhead we had no choice but to put the fly on our tent but the wind picked it up and away just in time for it to begin raining. Needless to say it was a miserable night to be out in the desert.