We woke up and left without any fanfare, not that we expected any. The plan today was simple. We were just heading further west towards the border. We had hoped to make it to Altay City, but that wasn’t to be.

The roads were in a shite state of affairs. Al took the first driving shift and we had a couple of big rock strikes. Rocks have become the bane of our existence here. And, when there isn’t a rock, there is a hole. Anyway, I took over and we were cruising along. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a rock jumped in front of the car. There was nothing I could do. Like the other times, we heard it hit the bash plate with a god-almighty BANG. It’s a sound that you never get used to. However, this time, there was a consequence. Suddenly there was a grinding sound. We stopped the car and had a quick look. There was nothing obviously wrong. So, we drove it a little more and the sound was still there whenever the car was moving.

Finally, I found the problem: the bracket that held the drive shaft midway along the bottom of the car had been bent backwards and the grinding was the drive shaft rubbing on it. It looked like it had been twatted quite a few times, but the last rock had been the last straw. We got under the car and Al undid the bracket hoping we could bend it. I suggested hitting it with a hammer was a professional way of dealing with the problem. Al tried hitting it but not only was the hammer not heavy enough, but we were simply lying under the car and couldn’t really swing it. If we could have taken the bracket off completely, maybe we could have sorted it out, but it wrapped around the drive shaft.

Thankfully, the next town was only 10 km away, so we decided to head there and see if we couldn’t find a mechanic. Loosening the bracket slightly was enough to stop the rubbing, but we still wanted to have it seen to.

We stopped for gas and asked where a mechanic was. After his wife tried drawing what could possibly be the worst excuse for a map I have ever seen, the gas station guy said he would show us and he hopped in the car with Al to take him there. As it was just around the corner, I walked behind. The ‘mechanic’ turned out to be a wizened old guy with a friendly smile that was bereft of more than a few teeth. He didn’t have a shop to speak of but had a quick look and understood the problem. Like us, he attempted to get it off, but found that it couldn’t be removed, just loosened.

He disappeared and came back with some medieval-looking tools and tried to bend it back. This didn’t work, so he got a solid steel-headed hammer. It worked a bit but the metal quickly became stubborn. Not to be outdone, he disappeared once more and came back with what can, as Al said, only be described as a sawn-off sledgehammer. He got me to hold the smaller hammer against the bracket while he hit it with the sledgehammer. For a guy who seemed to be nearer the end of his life than the beginning, he was deceptively strong. Long story short: after about an hour and half, the bracket was whacked back into a reasonable shape. However, the rubber housing between it and the drive shaft was also broken, so he got some heavy-duty rubber mat and through trial-and-error cut it to the right size. I gave the car a quick spin around the dirt bowl in front of his place. It was fixed. We gave him 40,000 Tugriks which made his day and he insisted on rubbing cheeks with us which I misinterpreted and gave him a kiss on each cheek. I can no longer claim I have never kissed a man.

We bid him farewell and headed on our way. There was no way we would be getting to Altay City today, so we headed as far as we could before setting up camp. We were about 2000 meters above sea level and with the wind chill it was absolutely freezing. I was wearing a t-shirt, hoodie, fleece, and gortex jacket and it was still cold. I set up the tent while Al whipped up dinner. On tonight’s menu was pasta with meat sauce. We ate in the tent and did some blogging before hitting the hay. I slept reasonably well, although I got woken up once or twice in the wee hours of the morning because of the cold.