Peacefrog's travel blogs:
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Revolving a day back around the world - From
there I will be one day
younger... and if I can't
get used to the idea,
maybe I'll just have to do
it again the other way...
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First go with the Mongolian horse
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Tuesday morning. I have to meet Toloo on Sukhbataar Square, the center of Ulanbataar. As usual, I am 15 minutes late, it is a cloudy and rainy day, and all I can see at the meeting point is police officers and a white 4x4. That's my pick-up in fact: Toloo and Ulzii. I get in the car with my bags, and off we go.
Following my discussions on Thorntree forum (see the Mongolia preparation entry), I had contacted stepperiders, run by Mendee (Mongolian) and Jennie (British). I was very interested on the insight that Jennie could give me as a foreigner living and working as a horse-trek guide in Mongolia. The resulting encounter was well above my expectations.
My driver was Toloo (Mendee's father), accompanied by Ulzii, who is in charge of the horses. We drove to the suburbs, where we retrieved a traditional deel for Jennie and also some wood and coal to heat the gers. The deel is that felt tunic with a bright fabric belt that many mongolians wear (there will be pictures). It keeps them warm and also acts as a cushion when they are riding on their traditional wooden saddles.
The mountains around Ulanbataar look like big hills, as they are only 1000m higher than the city... but that is still around 2500m high! They are covered with the snow that fell on my first day in Mongolia. We drove south through the Bogdkhan Uul National Park, where the roads were covered with snow. After 20km, we went down into the steppe, and I had my first experience of a mongolian road: it looks ok, but when driving not too fast on it, I still ended up hitting the car roof with my head. Now this is something that one can sometimes fear... but when it actually happens, you realize you could just have had your neck broken!!! The road was so bad that whenever possible, all vehicles would be driving off-road, sometimes just a few meters from the road, on flat(er) grassland. To top it up, there were holes in the car doors, and I was freezing... this little bit of "hardship", combined with the beautiful scenery and the dramatic cloudy sky made that an unforgetable drive.
South of the National Park, a few kilometers before the town of Zuunmod, we went off-road and reached the stepperiders camp: four gers, two horses, two dogs, and Jennie.
GPS coordinates: N 47 37.013 E 106 47.395
Oh, I forgot, there was a little yak too, and the mountains not far away
The previous client went back to Ulanbataar with Toloo, and I stayed with Jennie and Ulzii. I had a ger all for myself, but most of the time I would be with Jennie and Ulzii in their ger, which was also the place for drinking tea and having lunch.
In the afternoon Jennie took me for a ride. The weather was bad; from the snow the day before and the freezing wind on that day, I thought that maybe I should buy myself an extra coat if I intended to survive a trek in the Arkhangai province, as I had planned.
Jennie is really a cheerful girl, who fell in love with Mongolia and decided to stay there. She started this stepperiders business this year with her firend Mendee, who unfortunately I could not meet. She told me of her experience as a foreigner travelling in Mongolia, and gave me plenty of precious pieces of advice for preparing a horse trip, choosing and using equipment, and behaving in Mongolian countryside.
She also proposed me to have a deel made for me... seeing hers, and considering I needed and extra coat... I went for it. She called Toloo, who would take care of that.
That night I went to bed early, as I was begining to feel ill, and as I still had to make up with a decent sleeping time. Ulzii and Jennie started the fire to heat the ger... I went to bed and awoke freezing at 3 in the morning. After some mental preparation, I got out of the bed, put on more clothes, added covers on my sleeping bag, and started the fire again to have a little warmth.
Then I slept untill noon. When I got up, I was ill, the weather was still not great, but I had slept for real!
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