Outside Ulaanbator-June 6th 2011

I guess I won the Peace Corps lottery, they decided to send me to one of the most beautiful countries on Earth.  Flying from Seoul to Ulaanbator I knew when we had finally crossed from China to Mongolia.  Civilization suddenly stopped, the clouds gave way to blue sky, and below an endless expanse of desert and steppe extended for miles.  Neil Armstrong's famous description as he took his first steps on the moon immediately came to mind, "beautiful desolation".  As we went north steppe gave way to rolling hills, grassland and sparse patches of trees.  When we arrived at the airport (the smallest I've ever seen, I counted 3 gates), we gathered our baggage we walked through a gauntlet of screaming, cheering, applauding volunteers that had come from all reaches of the country to greet us.  We were quickly taken away to immigration for pictures, fingerprints and paperwork.  After that we sped down bumpy dirt roads to a tourist "ger camp".  They unloaded 3 vaccines into my arm and thrust a large wad of Mongolia cash at me.  We spent the night just relaxing around camp hiking up some of the surrounding hills and taking in the gorgeous landscape.  Everyone is getting to know each other pretty well.  We sat in the grass while I played guitar and people sang along, this was all back dropped by a panorama of my first Mongolian sunset.  I've never been so content and humbled.