Product Description

John Hare is a star author and one of the most well-known explorers of his generation. The Gobi is a perennially fascinating part of the world - a desert that people love to read about. China, the environment/natural world, exploration and discovery: broad and topical appeal. The Gobi is the largest, coldest and driest desert in Asia. Its shifting sands conceal ancient cities, 3,000-year-old mummies, dinosaur bones and areas where no man has set foot. It is also the last place on earth where the wild Bactrian camel clings to survival, its fragile habitat threatened by poachers and development. With the conservation of this elusive creature in mind, John Hare was inspired to venture into the wildest parts of the Chinese Gobi on an expedition during which they crossed a hundred miles of sand dunes, unexplored in recorded history. Several weeks into the journey, Hare and the team discovered, in two unmapped valleys, a population of wildlife with no experience of man. Interwoven with the account of his remarkable journey, Hare tells, for the first time, the story of an epic migration made by Kazakh nomads in flight from Chinese communists and describes the historic and current tensions between the Chinese and the indigenous Uighur population of Xinjiang. A blend of history and high adventure, discovery and conservation, 'Mysteries of the Gobi' is a unique and compelling account of modern-day exploration. 'Hare's compelling account of his expedition to the remote Chinese desert is part travelogue, part natural history. The author's excitement and enthusiasm for a hostile, unexplored and partly unmapped territory is infectious, perhaps because his experience is so far removed from that of most travellers. Descriptions of the people he meets along the way bring the journey to life;' - Emmanuelle Smith, Financial Times

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #82023 in Books
• Published on: 2008-12-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 237 pages

Review
'[a] terrific story of wild camels, Kazakh migrations, ancient mummies, lost cities, gold miners and oil speculators. 'Mysteries of the Gobi' is an exciting and important account of modern-day exploration, revealing much about the past and future of this extraordinary region.' --Ranulph Fiennes

'This is just a fantastic piece of writing. It's travel-writing, it's story-telling, it's a camp-fire tale of memorable characters and unforgettable places, packed with thrills and spills. This is an adventure story - and this is what will surely grab you - every word of it is true...' --Matthew Parris

'Hare brings all this, and more, to life, in a book that reprises and updates his previous one, 'The Lost Camels of Tartary'. He has an infectious eagerness to go beyond what is practical and sensible in pursuit of his aims. Accompanied by a cast of well-portrayed experts, he sees the austere beauty of these remote regions.' 'A brilliant addition to studies of exploration, the wilderness and conservation. [John Hare] brings exploration up to date with commitment to a noble cause: to search for, record and save one of the world's most extraordinary animals, the wild camel. A wonderful read.' --John Man, Literary Review

About the Author
John Hare is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Explorers Club of America. As well as living and working in Africa for many years, he has made several expeditions to the Mongolian Gobi and China's remote Xinjiang Province. He was the first foreigner to be invited to visit Lop Nur for over 45 years and the first foreigner in recorded history to cross the Gashun Gobi from north to south. In 1997 he founded the Wild Camel Protection Foundation and, with Chinese colleagues, established a 175,000 square kilometre Nature Reserve in Mongolia for the wild Bactrian camel. He is the author of 'The Lost Camels of Tartary' and 'Shadows across the Sahara'.

Customer Reviews

Wild camels survive where humans cannot
There are parts of the earth never meant for human habitation: but nowhere is free from the human quest for adventure, knowledge and gold, not even the Kum Tagh sand dunes fringing the Gashun ("Bitter") Gobi Desert. John Hare's account of three expeditions in China and Mongolia to track down the wild Bactrian camel has many tales of grit, gormlessness - a suicidal jeep-driver - and greed. First comes a double success. His use of domesticated camels rather than mechanised transport is vindicated. The highlight is finding an unmapped spring with a "naïve" population of wildlife - animals that, having not met humans before, do not fear them. The return expedition to the Kum Su spring discovers sickening proof of this naivety: illegal miners have brought in enough drums of potassium cyanide (used in treating gold-bearing ores) to poison whole cities - and the animals which drank at the spring.

Why does it matter than the 900 or so wild Bactrians survive? They have a DNA signature and morphology - flatter heads, smaller humps - distinct from their domesticated cousins and can survive while drinking water more brackish than seawater, which would kill us. There is much we do not yet know about camels. Yet what inspires Hare, Professor Yuan Guoying, Adiya -a resourceful Mongolian scientist - and others on the expeditions seems to be a cross-cultural love of physical and geographical challenges. Asked by one sponsor to complete a risk-assessment form, Hare chose honesty: "The risks are so high that they are impossible to assess."

A few fit and foolhardy readers might be tempted to join these adventurers. The best most of us can do is follow the lead of Matthew Parris - who contributes a lively foreword - and support the work of the Wild Camel Protection Foundation.