"You must have seen everything!" friends say sometimes when our nomadic lifestyle becomes a topic. Of course we haven‘t, but we need to admit that it is becoming more and more difficult to find places where our wanderlust still wakes up the butterflies in the stomach. We are no longer happy with copper coins. We want the golden ones and these are places offering us a physical and mental challenge. A region where we can become explorers and adventurers. That's why we long for places where information is scarce and Mister Google is lost in words. This is where our pulse rises, like with a treasure hunter, whose scoop scratches over a chest lid. Just then we feel this tingling in the belly, and it is as if we were out on our first travel day.

The Russian Altay is such a place. We have picked up the scent and although internet wants to make us believe that individual travelers do not get the necessary permits for the border region, that the Russian military does not allow foreigners to pass without a guide, we can not let it go. We are feeling like a hungry street mutt who has finally got a bone between its theeth. A treasure is waiting for us out there, we can already smell the gold.

To find a treasure you need not only a good map, but also a portion of luck. And that is what we get the next day, when we write to a travel agency in the Altay and ask for help in organizing the border permit. We receive not only a reply mail in perfectly written English, but also the confirmation that we can pick up the permit in two months in Kosh Agach's military camp. Without additional restrictions. Ha! Now we just need a Russian visa, and since this is only issued in the home country, we have to dig deeper in the travel trick's box. DHL flies our passports home, a Swiss visa service takes care of the papers. And exactly two months later we are leaving Mongolia for Russia. May the treasure hunt begin.

Finding treasures is known to be tricky. But here it is a piece of cake. On our way across the Ukok Plateau, the gold is scattered along the road. We just need to pick it up. The steppe glows, the whool grass is rustling in the wind and on the horizon is waiting a crystal palace: the four and a half thousand meter high peaks of the glaciated Tavan Bogd massif. The Ukok Plateau is a place of power, since ancient times a sacred site for the Tuwa and Kazakhs living here. With the discovery of the Altai Princess and her entourage of warriors and horses in a burial mound, preserved from permafrost, the Ukok Plateau has also become famous internationally. The princess is excavated and lies against the will of the locals in the Museum of Natural History in Novosibirsk, but the secret of the mountain surrounded plateau remains. It is a magical place, criss-crossed by countless meandering waterways, lonely, wild, enchanted. Some are talking about a huge natural parabolic mirror that captures radiation from the space.

On the third day a rain front catches us. The golden glow extinguishes, giving way to a dull, leaden gray. The raingear fails in short time and cold trickles seep into our enthusiasm. We need a shelter, it makes no sense in this weather. Further ahead in the valley we can locate a few buildings through the clouds, just before the wind slaps us the rain almost horizontally in the face. When we reach the abandoned Kazakh winter camp, we could boil a cup of tea with all the water in our underwear. We hide in the sauna, a small, moss isolated log house. Actually, we should now be satisfied with this copper coin, but there is a rusty barrel stove and thus the potential to turn our shelter into a gold piece again.

Like giant beehives dung piles are stocked outside, the perfect heating material in a treeless plain. Through the rain we drag some pieces into the sauna and fill the stove with it. Soon it gets warm and comfortable - stop! Blackout. Again: Soon we are coughing our lungs out of the body and escape into the pouring rain. Our shelter, a black smoky hole. Such a crap! Shivering, we stand in the cold, blaming ourselves and the situation in general. In one of the stables we find a bottle of gasoline and plan an attack. After all, this is our territory. Muted like real bandits, we face the enemy. A generous shot of petrol directly into the oven, a high flame and then - victory! The shit is finally burning, the smoke is slowly drawing off and we are re-claiming our lost ground. Soon our clothes are drying on a line above us.

The next morning dense fog flows over the plateau. We feel the proximity of autumn. But then the sun breaks through, pouring again liquid gold over the plateau. The wind hunts misty ghosts over the marshland, which soon hang like spider webs between the grasses and condense to iridescent glass pearls. When we are ready, the weather has turned to one of these autumn days, when the whole world is glowing.

Anyone who gets addicted to the glitter of gold can not abandon it anymore. He grabs together what he can and never gets enough. And so we do not hear the voices of the locals, who think that our planned route through the Argut valley and over three high trekking passes is not possible by bike. We only see this turquoise-green river, this archaic mountain world, this track meandering through the Argut valley and we know: There is still more to get.

After about fifty kilometers we reach a small hamlet and the end of the road. On our map it is named as Komuna Argut. And really: with crossing the old wooden bridge we seem to have set one foot back into Soviet times. Small, dark-brown log houses with blue-painted window frames and white struts. The villagers with Asian faces, in old military dresses, harvesting hay in comunity work with horse and tractor. What for God's sake holds these people here? At this place, forgotten from the outside world, fallen out of time... But then we look around, and we see it, the shining in the eyes. "Krassiva?" a man asks, leaning on his pitchfork. Yes, beautiful, this patch of earth is incredibly beautiful. We ask if anyone wants to help us with horses over the next forty kilometers of trekking path and the three passes. We get a friendly but definite "Njet!". The men and horses are used for haying. The tops of the mountain peaks are already snowed in. And why would anyone want to make money if he already has gold?

As if the current of the Argut river had caught us, as if every thought of turning back were against the law of nature, we are feeling in the midst of this mighty landscape. Bet that the next river bend is even more beautiful, bet that at the foot of Mount Belucha there are not only gold nuggets, but also diamonds? And so we move on. Despite the lack of help, despite the tormenting voice of reason, we can not turn back. We want to search further, discover more, find Eldorado.

Unfortunately there is not only gold in the Argut valley, but also rock. After twelve kilometers on a completely blocked and slippery horse path, we are exhausted and we feel: if there is not the fountain of youth around the corner, chasing down treasures will end here. Should we not be satisfied? Have we not got enough? Yes! And so we roll up our map, turn back, the heart filled with gems. At some point we will return. With good hiking shoes and a backpack. Because as true treasure-hunters we know: As long as there are unexplored marks on the map, something is buried there.