I had everything I needed for my record attempt in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia except for one small item – a 4-foot by 5-foot plank of wood! I had the regulation stilts, I had a jump rope and I had the official witnesses in the car with me. We were on our way to the Ulaan Bataar airport to catch a flight to Dalanzagad, not much more than an airstrip deep in the Gobi. I was going to attempt the record for jumping rope the most times in a minute on stilts. I needed the wood to bounce on because the stilts would sink deeper and deeper into the sand without it, preventing me from cranking out the 102 jumps required to break the current record. I was trying not to dwell on the fact that if I didn’t have the wood with me already, how was I going to find a plank of wood in the middle of one of largest and least populated deserts on the planet?!
I’m not as disorganized as you might think. When we left for the airport, I actually had the perfect piece of wood in the backseat of the taxi, but I lost it! The wood was part of a construction project that my friend was working on. He gave me permission to take the plywood with me as long as I promised to bring it back. However, minutes after we left the hotel, my friend called my cell phone in a panic! He had to finish the project in a few hours and he needed his plank back immediately. With a sinking feeling, I told the taxi driver to turn around so I could return the precious cargo.
Jowan, the official photographer, was traveling with me and when I re-entered the taxi after surrendering the wood, he noticed my distress. Although young, he is wise beyond his years and he said, “Hey, don’t worry. We’ll find a piece of wood in the desert, I’m sure of it.” I didn’t see how he could be so sure.
However, at the airport, as I was checking in my stilts for the flight, I saw something which startled me. There, on the conveyor belt, as clear as day, was a large red wooden table! As it disappeared from sight, I couldn’t help thinking that if I detached the legs, it would make the ideal stilt-jumping platform! Maybe this would turn out OK after all. All I had to do was wait until we landed in Dalanzagad, observe who claimed the table, and then convince them to let me destroy the furniture which they had gone through the trouble of transporting for 500 miles!
I spent much of the flight going over my strategy. Judging from the look of the other passengers, I suspected that the owner of the table was probably a local who didn’t speak a word of English. I would have to locate our guide at the airport as soon as we landed. The people at the travel agency, who set up the trip, assured me that the guide, who was also our driver, understood English. This was crucial because we needed to go over our complicated plan which involved staying overnight in a tourist camp, then driving 2 hours to the sand dunes and attempting the record, and then making the long drive back through the desert to Ulaan Bataar. We had to drive because flights out of Dalanzagad were infrequent and our flight back to the U.S. was due to depart in 2 days.
Once the propeller-driven aircraft touched down in the desert, I dashed out in search of our guide. I eventually found him and quickly discovered, as you must have guessed by now, that he didn’t speak or understand a word of English! In the meantime, the owner of the table somehow eluded me and disappeared with his treasure into the sunset. It became painfully obvious that our expedition was doomed!
Just then, I felt a tap on the shoulder. It was the photographer, Jowan, and he was beaming. In his hands was a beat up, slightly warped, sun-bleached plank of wood. The wood was so useless that someone at the airport had discarded it. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, my whole attitude changed. Whether the wood was suitable for the record or not was beside the point. It was as if that plank was a door and I had just stepped through it, out of the negative attitude room straight into the positive attitude room! I stopped my blaming and complaining and couldn’t wait to see how our adventure would unfold.
Sure enough, when we got to the tourist camp, the only other guests were Japanese, but one lady spoke perfect English. Because she had been studying how to play the horse headed violin (morin khuur) with a Mongolian teacher for the last 7 years in Tokyo, she was also fluent in Mongolian. That evening, not only did she convey our plan to our driver, but she gave us an extemporaneous concert on her instrument as well! She and her group also just happened to be going to the dunes the next morning and, by 10 a.m., I was ready to attempt the stilt jumping record in the Gobi Desert in front of an audience!
The conditions couldn’t have been much worse. There was a raging wind, sand was flying all over the place, I could barely see, and the famous piece of wood was so narrow that I was having difficulty staying on it, but I was having a ball! The timers and counters shouted the signal to start and, when the minute was up, I had somehow managed to do 106 jumps and break the record!
The trip only got better from there. Although our driver couldn’t speak our language, we communicated through our hearts and had a great time. The man was a genius. He navigated us through the desert to Ulaan Bataar with no roads or signs for 14 hours. In fact, we didn’t see another car for the first 8 hours, and we only passed through one small village on the way where we got some food and joked around with the kids. We weathered a sandstorm, a snowstorm and a rainstorm and never once got lost. The ride was so smooth that it wasn’t until we hit a pothole in the city on the way to the hotel, that we bounced up and cracked our heads on the roof of the jeep!
I’ve learned that happiness depends so much on one’s attitude. It’s been 3 weeks since I returned from Mongolia and I’m still joyfully riding that positive wave of energy which began in the desert, knock on wood!
