Travel Journals by Hilary Hopkins

Part 2 – Eclipse Camp

Arising in the predawn darkness, we creep onto buses for the airport and the three tiny planes that will carry our group to the far west. Elegant grassland surrounds the airstrip. The sky is decorated with herringboned clouds. As we move back from the gate, a handsome young man stands straight, the right arm rigidly at his side, the left arm straight out, palm open, to signal the pilot. All over the world men have learned these flying skills, driving skills. People who late were herding cattle or growing crops are now driving cars and fixing them with aplomb, or flying enormous machines through the sky.

There is nothing to be seen behind him but grass. The hills are shaped like sand dunes, only covered with grass of a soft green. But we fly over desolate snowy mountains. Is there anyone down there? Hello?

Landing in a tiny grassy airport in Ulgi in the west, we pile into wretched ancient soviet vans, and set off into the dust. No road, much, just a track covered not with rocks but with what one might name as boulders.

Along the way, seen briefly out the filthy windows in the heat, are herds of black and dark brown long-haired yaks mixed in with cows, some standing in the water of the river that runs to one side of the track, surrounded with luxuriant trees and grass, and on the other side like the worst concept of a lunar landscape—nothing but white-gray rocks, dust, gravel, and nothing at all growing. But we stop for lunch in a modest green place, and some children observe us with a dignified curiosity, well at a distance.

Increasingly I am unresponsive, just about destroyed, my body thrashed by continual lurching and clouds of dust. My heart sinks lower and lower, and when we arrive, after eight hours, at eclipse camp and find our ger among the 38 of them, it is all I can do to take off my shoes and lie on the little bed, stunned, a part of the kaleidoscope of colors hung on the sides.

Our ger has a sky blue door. Inside it is spacious, with a rondel of poles to the ceiling, where the canvas covering opens to the sky. The round felt walls are covered with a collection of gorgeous cloths. There are two little bedsteads, with somebody's personal blankets on mine (I know 'cause I can smell a person on it, along with the pervasive mutton smell). But I put my mattress on the ground, because the spring is like a hammock. We learn that the gers have all been rented from and furnished by local families. Before dark there is some rain, and people gather by the edge of lake along which our ger camp is arranged, watching a ravishing sunset, with rain over the mountains behind us flushing rosy in the dying light.

It is dark in our ger, and quiet outside. There is a cunning small stove, its pipe reaching up and through the round opening to the sky, and at 9:00 p. m. the fire-men come and light it for us--they are Kazakhs, the people here in the far west--and a lady, wrinkled face, brown skin, intent on her job, lights our two little candles. After the fire-men leave, and I am tucked in, the gentle crackle of the wood fire, its sweet odor, send me to sleep. I sleep in profound peace, as is usual in these situations where I have made a place of safety and comfort amidst difficult surroundings.

---

This morning in long low light, quite free to walk anywhere, I go over the soft hills, passing the holes of small rodents, bleached bones of goats and sheep, perhaps yaks, a pair of black ridged horns, numerous low flowers of purple and yellow, a horseman on the horizon, an eagle perched on a low stone.  Underfoot lies a miniature landscape of valleys and hills, formed by differential freezing and thawing. For this land is powerfully beset by winter at another time of year.

In Alaska, the great thing was how in Denali National Park on the 90-mile park road you could just tell your bus driver, let us off here, and then you could hike wherever you wanted to, for there are no trails. The sense of limitless space and permission to travel in it was intoxicating. Here it is even more vast, vast beyond imagining—there are only 2.7 million people in this vastness, and about one-third of those live in the capital; the rest are scattered across the 18th largest country in the world. I can walk to the horizon and each succeeding horizon and do this freely.

An intoxication of space. Limitless invitation. An invitation to the horizon.

After breakfast, in the gathering tent we hear a talk by a remarkable man, born here in the mountains and grown up here.  He speaks only Kazakh and his talk is translated for us by a guide who does not speak much English. But our speaker is excited and happy to be talking to us, and we all get the gist of his story.  He became an economist and accountant, and then became interested in the hundreds, thousands of petroglyphs in these mountains. Now he has a PhD in archeology, and has written many papers on the petroglyphs of his home land. I am excited to see these, to think of these artists who came before, seeing and transcribing and transforming what they saw.

Later some of us take a nice long walk along the lake that we are arrayed on, and admire the snow-covered mountains beyond, and a marsh at the edge of the lake, and large herds of goats and sheep, each herd belonging to a different family. Here and there on the horizon stands your odd horseman, and one or two gers, distantly, and there are little flowers, and large kites sailing expertly overhead, and a small ground squirrel that a heedless woman frightened away.

After lunch and a small nap, we drove out a horrible road (they have no other kind here), and our petroglyph man took us up to the side of two hills plated in slate and slanted at a precarious angle (not easy to do this laborious work!), and covered with these glyphs—horses with people on them, some of the people armed with bows; deer, two of them fighting with antlers; some huge horses, perhaps ten feet across. All of these are picked out on the rock, from Stone, Bronze and Iron ages. They face a landscape of three glaciated valleys and are at the edge of a field of enormous boulders, randomly strewn as if sprinkled carelessly by some bygone giant or disinterested god.

Then we go to see the ancient stone circle, perhaps eighty feet across, a sacred site and probably a burial site. A rectangular mound rises in the center of the circle, and there are four spokes of rocks leading away from the mound to the edge of the circle, at quite carefully spaced intervals. I walk around in a clockwise direction, and there on the far side from where everybody is dutifully listening to a mini-lecture about the site, but not looking at it, I find a tall standing stone, just at the apex of a cone-shaped spoke, quite different from the other three. When you stand at the base of the cone, your eye MUST travel straight to the standing stone, and on to the mountains beyond. I am very excited by this sight and hasten back to the group to try to get others to walk around to see it. Three or four do...

This important place lies at the base of a stark grey bowl of hills. The footprint of our predecessors is visible everywhere, though nearly obliterated.

This night, people having rested somewhat from yesterday's arduousness, we all stay around outside by the edge of the lake for a while for a while, then into the dining tent for an astronomy lecture, followed by an outdoor concert of playing and singing by a local family, the terribly handsome man (ruddy face, broad, high cheeks, slanted dark eyes, high forehead, and beautiful teeth), and his young son and somewhat older, very pretty daughter. They play two-stringed instruments for us, and sing. The boy has an angelic clear sweet voice. At their request for a song from us, I of course suggest America the Beautiful, and we sing it, but most of our group don't sing well. But it's ok. Our Kazakh crew, inspired by the presence of a microphone, sing along with the family, and after they leave, sing on and on and I am so glad they are having fun. They too, like us, will say in times to come, "Remember when we…?"

By the time darkness falls, around 10, most of the group go up on the low hill behind camp for a star party. I use my binoculars on the way to the washing-up tentlet, and splash into the glittering ocean of stars above this limitless space. Tucked in my cozy ger with the blue door, I hear exclamations of delight from the hill, and guess they have seen a big shooting star.

Tomorrow afternoon, the eclipse. Which will happen, whether we see it or not.

---

Before eclipse-preparation time, this morning we are driven on a nominal "road" (three stream fordings, each more nervous-making than the last), to visit what are called the Man Stones, five foot tall carved standing stones of stylized men, carrying pouches and perhaps weapons, from Turkic times, each one placed in front of a rectangular grave, covered with stones and bordered by low walls of slate. There they stand in the middle of the broad landscape.

Nearby are excitingly-long parallel lines of stones, leading off into the distance. We are told that in some places these lines (their purpose??) may go for many kilometers. The lines are startlingly straight. How did they do this? who made them, and why? How I wish I could just peer back into time a little bit and watch from a low hill nearby, invisible, while our people gathered the stones and put them in place, according to someone's grand plan.

Horsemen appear, single or in pairs, stay a short while, sit good naturedly for pictures, and then somehow just vanish. They have compact wiry bodies, dark handsome faces with high bones, and the horses they ride with such ineffable fluidity are small and powerful. The great grace and ease of horse and rider are different from any I have ever seen. These are not tall show horses or pinto ponies that work stock, these are partners for getting about the vast land.

Thus though the land looks empty, and according to statistics it is, nevertheless round white gers and dark horses and horsemen sprinkle the landscape.

There is a home visit, to a family's ger. Inside is a rich array of the lady's needlework, mostly in reds, brilliant colors on the walls, wonderful designs. The ger has beds around the walls, and little shelves with household necessaries—cooking things, a mirrored shelf with toothbrush holders and soap. There's a big spread of foods on the floor, mostly dairy foods, and we are invited to sit on the floor and the foods are offered. Seeing I cannot sit on the floor, a stool is offered. There is yakmilk tea, and yogurt, which I only pretend to drink, and some tough and unflavored cheese. The grandfather turns out to be my age (he guesses I am 54, bless him), and his wife is 65; their son lives there too, with his eight children in a close-by ger, which has a satellite dish and solar panels. Grandfather is elegant and dignified and although he says not a word through the introductions and all, his presence is immense. His wife is silent and deferential, until she gets to demonstrate her needlework skills, and offer some for sale to us. She makes a fair amount of money this way, for the family, and I see her animated, smiling and talking to some of our ladies. Her little granddaughter watches and learns. Outside a huge golden eagle is tethered, in training from one of the men, who it seems has won important competitions with his birds in the yearly golden eagle festival.

But now it is time to return to eclipse camp to prepare.

***THE ECLIPSE***

It is two hours to First Contact now [First Contact is the instant of the moon's shadow first taking a "bite" out of the sun's disc].  John and I prepare our binoculars with welders' glass and duct tape. I organize my times, get my notebook and pen, my hat and scarf, and my camera. The wind rises to a fierce pitch, a hot wind, but the sky seems promising, with only some puffy clouds.

At 3:45, an hour and 11 minutes to First Contact, I have made my way up and out of camp and I am on my private (I hope) little hill by a fine big rock. This is what I like—to be away from the others and yet within sight and sound of them. I have my white plastic chair, and everything I need. There are a lot of these white puffy clouds, and the warm or even hot wind is strong. It's not as good for seeing, maybe, as yesterday. But of course the sun will be eclipsed even if I or no one sees it, so I am serene.

I am a little worried though, 'cause for quite a while now I have been describing eclipses to people who hear about us going to Mongolia and want to know why we would come so far, and our astronomer Alex Filippenko described everything in minute detail, with slides, yesterday, especially for the newbies. So, I'm thinking, what if I have finally gotten sort of inured to all this?

There are a few people on other, distant hills, and the wind is quite fierce and warm. A small brilliant blue and spotted tiny butterfly sat for a moment on my sleeve. When he then goes to some grass in front of me, wanting to catch him, I leave my chair. Big mistake. It plus my camera on it are immediately blown over. Finally I think to move my chair into the lee of my rock, which is large, warm and granite, and seems special and protective to me. Now from my chair my rock is just as high as my shoulders, and I can lay my arm on it and feel its warmth.

There is an olive green dragonfly, kites, an eagle. Bits of flies, ants, little grasshoppers. Millions of small black shards of rock.

From my rock I can see four very small eclipse camps plus our huge one. Two people sit in red folding chairs on the next hill.  A local person walked quite near, but politely ignored me. I think this must be local courtesy, and I greatly rejoiced. It is 19 minutes to First Contact...

FIRST CONTACT!! the lower right limb, a crisply taken bite, a carefully-chosen morsel. I yell it out, and cheer, and hear our group down the hill also. Now there are three small groups near me, including a van which just drove up and parked, obscuring the lovely lake view. Some young woman gets out, climbs up on the roof of the van, a huge long black scarf around her neck billowing and filling the air. I see with my binoculars that she has only those paper and plastic glasses for viewing.

15 minutes in.  A little cooler, oh yes, a little darker---I can't—it's paler, washed out, the light. The wind is cool now, not warm or hot.

From my private hill and rock I can now see nine groups and some yaks and gers. I can easily sneak glances now, up there, at the sun--

The sun is a far crescent behind the puffy clouds, with my binoculars I can see it gleaming and the clouds rushing in front of it. Now, at +30, across the grassy hills it is beginning, it is wrong now. The oddness has started, early.

There isn't enough light here. I am going to stand up now. Witness.

+36. That sun crescent is not so fat now.

I don't like this.

I don't like this.

I don't like how my shadow looks there on the grass and my rock.

I feel agitated.

It's (+42) getting hard now. The wind is a little chilly, and there's not enough light.

10 minutes to total. Shadows too much there, it's too chilly, and there's not enough light. I can't SEE WELL.

8 minutes to. NO NO NO!!  I don't like it!

this isn't

Oh! walk around my rock walkaroundmyrock walkaroundmyrock walk AROUND

-2 there's NOWHERETO GO NOWHERE TO GO

Oh GOD!

DARK IT'S DARK SO DARK

mercury venus glittering HUGE  orange prominence

gigantic pink CHROMOSPHERE profound darkness all around around the whole world of here so dark I cannot see my camera on my chair by my rock

---

When the light returns I am still in a place of darkness. There is a keen line between the place of light, just beyond, and the place of darkness.

I grab my white chair, say goodbye and thank you to my big rock, and thrilled with joy and relief or happiness, march down the hill to where everybody is, by the little blue tent and the Mongolian flag.

Did you see THAT??
Did you see how it...?
Did you see when...?
Wasn't that...?
I never...!
...the best...!
...the most beautiful...!

The bar has moved up the hill from the dining tents and people are drinking happily, with big grins suffusing their faces. Pictures are taken, of all the Kazakhs who joined us—men, women, little kids and even babies. Pictures of the Wilderness Travel team. People taking pictures of each other by the big Mongolia Eclipse banner. People showing each other their own pictures. Look! I really got the...! The astronomer Alex is grinning broadly, surrounded by excited people.

Ineffable happiness. This, our eighth eclipse. I am grateful for it.

 

And now at the end of this wonderful day, we must prepare to take the long, long drive, back over the terrible road, in the dark, back eight hours to Ulaanbataar.

We retreat to our ger and our little beds. I climb in completely dressed and pull the covers around me and sleep deeply in the strong-smelling dark, surrounded by a flood of Kazakh, until in the night someone comes into our ger (they do just walk in) and uses a flashlight to see if we are there. I wake up fully and don't hear anyone outside, and think we had better get going to get our group of vans.

It seems we are the last ones to leave. Hell, we could've just slept through and awakened when they came to take down the ger.

But we get in the wretched van, knee to knee, and there are with us it turns out two of those unbearably perky women, who try to start an inane conversation (John says I should have some t-shirts made: If you are going to say something stupid or inane, don't; or, I have high standards. See that you meet them.).  Anyhow, I say nothing.

Our caravan has five vehicles. Dust is raised and glows in headlights. The roof of the van touches my head when I am just seated so I must hunch over as I grab the seats, sitting sideways with one foot in a box of water bottles, and I just go way down inside myself, eyes closed, my body bounding and thrashing up and down over the boulders.

We stop many times in the beginning, for breakdowns, for when one stops they all stop, the safest thing, I can see. The night sky is glorious, the ocean of glittering stars. The air is chill and sweet. Once I sit on a rock in the dark and a delicious smell comes from some unseen plant crushed by my feet. It is well after midnight and the meteors fly overhead. I see two short and two long ones. The last one beams across the whole sky, its tail breaking up into silver fizz.

I look at my watch now and then, in the light from the van behind us when it is very close; time passes: 2:00, 3:00, 3:45 and we get out and it is getting light, no more Milky Way, no more shooting stars. I have some hope that I will get through this.

At the end, five vans race in a broad front across the wide flat valley, no roads at all, dust trails in their wake, headlights on at first then turning them off in the rising light.

And then we are at the airport, and Eclipse Camp is far away, and my big good rock, the standing stones and the spoked wheel, and the dark has run away.

The DARK, deeper than any of the other eclipses. The violent chromosphere. Mercury, Venus gleaming out.

The nightride, a strange dream. Mysterious, lovely, fantastical.