2,500 kilometers in the heart of Mongolia

Text and photographs by Mattia Botturi Cavagnini

A journey through steppes, mountains, deserts, nomadic families and photography

When we set off for Mongolia, we had sixteen days ahead of us, an off-road vehicle, a guide and an itinerary that already looked ambitious on paper. What we didn’t really know was what it would mean to travel across a country like this.

Over sixteen days, we covered around 2,500 kilometres, passing through landscapes that were completely different from one another. We drove for hours without seeing almost anyone, hiked through mountains and valleys, crossed the Gobi Desert, slept in camps and traditional gers, and spent time with nomadic families.

One of the things I remember most, though, is the time we spent in the car. At first, we were constantly looking out of the window, searching for something. After a few days, we stopped doing that. We simply looked.

We would stop whenever we spotted a herd of horses in the distance, when the light became interesting or simply when a place caught our attention enough to make us want to get out and explore.

Mongolia is not a destination. It’s a distance.

The first thing that strikes you when you arrive in Mongolia is the sheer amount of space.

For those of us used to living in places surrounded by roads, houses, towns and signs, it’s almost difficult to comprehend the distances involved. There are moments when you drive for hours and all you can see around you is grass, mountains and sky. Even the word “roads” is fairly relative in many cases. Often, they’re simply tracks in the earth that split, cross one another and eventually disappear. Our off-road vehicle moved slowly over dirt, rocks and sand, while the landscape outside kept changing. A herd of horses on the horizon, a nomadic family with their animals, a valley lit by the setting sun or, a few days later, an expanse of sand dunes. It’s difficult to truly get used to having so much space around you.

Walking where there are no trails

One of the things we appreciated most about Mongolia was the freedom to move without necessarily following a set route. Very often, there was no actual trail. We would simply choose a direction and start walking. Sometimes we wanted to reach a viewpoint, get closer to some animals or find a different perspective for a photograph. The terrain could also change in an instant: hard-packed earth, rocks, sand, tall grass, mud and small streams. Some sections were incredibly easy, while others required much more attention.

But it’s precisely this unpredictability that makes exploring so special. You never know what’s waiting beyond the next hill. You don’t know whether the valley ahead will reveal a lake, a herd of horses or simply another endless expanse of open land. And perhaps that’s exactly what made us feel like we were truly travelling.

The Gobi Desert

Arriving in the Gobi was undoubtedly one of the most anticipated moments of the trip.

Before leaving, I inevitably associated the word “desert” with sand. Once we got there, we realised that the Gobi is far more varied: rocks, earth, mountains, plains and then, suddenly, sand dunes. Walking on the sand was completely different from anything we had experienced in the previous days. Every step sinks into the ground, the sand constantly shifts beneath your feet, and even a climb that looks fairly easy from below turns out to be longer than expected.

But once we reached the top, we stopped. In front of us, there was almost nothing but sand and, much farther away, the mountains.

I had my camera with me, but there was no need to rush around looking for something to photograph. The most interesting thing was simply to wait. Just a few minutes were enough for the light to change, transforming the appearance of the same landscape.

Mountains, lakes and silence

One of the things that surprised me most about Mongolia was the diversity of its landscapes.

During our journey, we moved from the arid regions of the Gobi to green landscapes, mountains, valleys and lakes. We would sometimes wake up surrounded by grass and find ourselves in a completely different environment just a few hours later. Not knowing exactly what we would encounter during the day had become normal. And then there was the silence.

In the evening, when we arrived at camp, all it took was walking a few metres away from the ger to hear almost nothing at all. No constant background noise. Just the wind. Some evenings, we stayed outside watching the sky, doing little else. And it’s one of the few things about this journey that I still struggle to truly capture in the images when I look back at the photographs.

Nomadic families

If I had to choose one of the aspects that left the deepest impression on me during this journey, it would probably be the encounters with people.

Over the sixteen days, we had the opportunity to meet several nomadic families and spend time with them. Entering a ger for the first time is a unique experience. From the outside, it looks like an extremely simple structure. Inside, you find a stove, food, carpets, everyday objects and a home organised around a way of life very different from our own. Animals are everywhere and are an essential part of the families’ daily lives: horses, goats, sheep, camels and dogs. Photographing people in this kind of setting also requires a different approach.

I didn’t want to simply arrive, take a photograph and leave. I preferred to wait a while, observe what was happening and give people time to get used to our presence. We didn’t speak the same language, and often we didn’t need to. Sometimes, a smile or showing someone the photograph I had just taken on my camera’s screen was enough.

These are very simple moments, but they’re also the ones that come back to me most easily when I think about the journey.

When photography takes you further

Travelling with a camera also means making life a little more complicated.

Throughout this journey, we constantly found ourselves getting up earlier to catch better light, wandering off in search of the right composition or stopping when it would have been easier to keep going.

In Mongolia, photography often took us beyond our planned itinerary.

We were looking for perspectives, people and moments that would allow us to tell the story of the country through more than just its vast landscapes. And so, almost without realising it, we ended up walking quite a lot. We didn’t necessarily go on long treks every day. More often, they were small detours: climbing to a viewpoint, following a herd of horses for a while, approaching a family or walking across the dunes while waiting for the light we were looking for. By the end of the journey, we realised just how much ground we had covered this way.

Life on the road

After a few days, we also stopped paying much attention to the hours spent in the car. The off-road vehicle had become part of our daily routine, and we spent much of our days travelling along tracks that, at least to us, seemed to lead nowhere.

Yet somehow, we always ended up somewhere: a new camp, a family, a valley or simply the place where we would spend the night.

Of course, not everything was perfect. There were long hours in the car, wind, heat, sudden spells of cold and, above all, an incredible amount of dust that, after just a few days, had found its way practically everywhere: onto our clothes, our equipment and inside the vehicle. There were also days when we were tired and wished we could stop earlier. But then a herd of animals would appear, we would arrive somewhere unexpected, or the changing light would completely transform the landscape in front of us. We would take out our cameras again and carry on.

In the end, it’s the memories that stay

On the last day, as we made our way back towards Ulaanbaatar, we finally began to realise that the journey was coming to an end. Outside the window, there were still mountains, plains, herds of animals and isolated gers. They were the same sights we had been seeing for days, but by then they had started to feel almost familiar. After around 2,500 kilometres, we had begun to understand the rhythm of this kind of journey and, above all, to get used to the idea that we didn’t always need to reach somewhere as quickly as possible.

Our AKU boots also came home looking very different from when they had set off. They were covered in dust and bore the marks of days spent walking through sand, dirt, rocks and mud. They accompanied us for around 2,500 kilometres across Mongolia, from the Gobi to the mountains and valleys, and every time we left the off-road vehicle to continue on foot. Today, when I look back at the photographs from those weeks, they occasionally appear in the pictures too. In some shots, they’re in the foreground; in most, they’re barely visible. And that’s probably the most accurate way to describe the role they played throughout the journey: they were simply there, every day, alongside us.

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