Singing Sands Gorge

From BaoTou we took a taxi to a bus to a taxi to the desert area (nothing is simple). As we were nearing Singing Sands we looked around disappointed. Where is the desert? Just as we were saying that, we rounded a corner, and lo and behold...desert! It came out of nowhere!











To get up to the desert, you have to hike up a huge sand slope, or you could take the cable car like I did. I was a little annoyed at having to take yet another cable car while my friends hiked something, but as soon as I saw clearly what they were hiking up, I was thankful for the car!














At the top there was all kinds of fun stuff...paragliding, four wheelers,archery, all-terrain sand vehicles, and CAMELS! Camels are the strangest, coolest creatures ever. We took an hour camel ride around the desert area (which is much more comfortable than a horse, by the way) after I wisely donned the ugliest cowboy hat ever. I knew I was going to the desert yet didn't bring sunscreen. Smart. So I wore the ugly hat.































Once you were done playing at the top, you could slide down the sand slope (for a fee of course) which to me was better than the cable car.
















Peach, Brad, and I decided to go all out and take a ride in the "Amphicar," a car developed by the US military that goes on land and water. That was super fun! And yes I look like an old lady tourist in this picture :).














One small downside I realized from not taking the cable car back up to the main entrance was the not-so-small sand mountain you had to hike up to get to the top. It is here that I learned I probably have exercise-induced asthma (thanks to Brad and Google!).

We headed back to BaoTou to try to get a bus back to Hohhot since we were leaving from there the next morning...