Raft Continued...

You’ve got to understand something about Jack and this car. The driver does not go out with us when we take off on a hike or camel ride or whatever. Their job is to, well, drive – and boy was he an excellent driver! We couldn’t help but notice that he spent the time cleaning the car. Here we are, driving on dirt roads. Everyone is driving on dirt roads so the air is quite full of dirt at times. Each time we stopped to see something, Jack got out the cleaning rags and began working on the car. By the time we got back, the car would be shining - inside and out! He just babied this thing. He is also a master mechanic. We had one of the shocks break so he had to spend the day driving relatively slowly to be able to continue driving without bouncing the back end, and us, to death. We were VERY lucky we weren’t in the states. At home a broken shock would require an appointment, leaving the car for the entire day, the purchase of a new shock and a huge bill to install it. In Mongolia, Jack drove up to a car repair shop and went in to talk to the people. We poured out of the car (hot in the sun) and sought out the shade, figuring we were in for a long wait. He came out, jacked up the car, took off the shock and the broken piece, went inside, they welded it, he put it back on the car and we were leaving in less than an hour. We were stunned!