In the morning she has attracted some locals so we mime broken axle and welding to them and they are able to confirm that we are about 10 km from someone who can fix us up. Somehow the hub stays on for the last gut-wrenching few km into the local mechanic. It is broken so badly we will have to completely remove it from the car for him to weld it. A few hours later we have the axle out, welded up (and splinted using metal from the roof rack) and back in the car. Very happy to see the Pale Horse back on the road, we head off. On the way out of town we find the Danes ambulance with the remaining 5 people in it the loaded in the back of a truck headed for Ulaanbaatar. Today we took a slight detour to Harhorin, the old capital city of the Mongol Empire. It was only in use for a brief period of time before the capital was moved to Beijing. After the capital was moved the city declined until it was destroyed by the Manchurians, however they left the monastery intact, which is one of the must see temples in Mongolia. However the Soviets, destroyed most of the temple buildings, and killed of the monks. Now a few temples remain, and an odd cock rock placed on the “vagina slope“ to stop temptation in monks. All that remains of the city is a turtle rock, which marked the gates of the city. The turtle is a Mongolian symbol for eternity . Someone decided that we should camp on the very top of a big hill overlooking the city. The view was great, but the wind was even better - not the best sleep we have had.
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