Rolling green hills and mountains. Jagged rocks. A bright blue sky dotted with cotton clouds. A crystal clear brook cuts through the flood plain. A ger. A herd of horses, branded by the nomads nearby. A wild takhii trots through camp, more interested in the other horses than by us, and pauses to stare at me. A wild cow keeps watch. The sun is setting over the hills casting long shadows behind the few trees that line the brook.
This is Mongolia.
A breeze sweeps over the steppe, the only sounds those of the wind in my ears and the grasshoppers holding court. A small lunch of bread, cheese, Nutella, and tea. The sun warms our shoulders and we relax, nettles nipping our legs. This land is vast.
As early evening sets in, we have made camp by a river in a flood plain, dried out for months after the rainy season. The tents are pitched, dinner is being prepared, and I'm sure we'll sleep like the dead in the silence of this truly wild wilderness.
It was two days of traveling to get here, and we flew into Chinggis Khan Airport with no consequence, into the cool air that was a refreshing break from the stuffiness of Beijing. A new language, a new alphabet. We didn't sleep long as our schedules haven't synced with the new time zone, now 13 hours ahead of Chicago and our internal clocks are upside-down. As I write this, I've had three days to acclimate, but I am finally exhausted and have fought off a nap, saving it for after dinner when I'll surely begin to doze in front of the campfire.
Two years of planning went into this trip. I am fortunate to have friends that also love adventure and travel, so Fay is along for the ride to Mongolia. We snoozed long and hard for moments at a time and for the final flight into Ulanbaatar. Neither of us remember takeoff. Checking in and heading to bed was uneventful. But I was a little on pins and needles until our guide Eku and driver Achura picked us up.
I had been planning with Tseren Tours since the winter. Things were going well until two weeks before the trip when their email was hacked and the hacker had attempted to steal my email password, and tried to get me to wire funds through Western Union to an account in Texas. I could no longer communicate with Tseren through email, but fortunately I finalized details with them via phone during late nights in Chicago when I was awake and they were open for business half a world away. All went according to plan when we met at the tour office in the morning to pay our deposit and begin our journey.
And we did, rolling out of Ulanbaatar and into the countryside. The open road was fine enough but we shall never complain about potholes in Chicago again. We stopped on occasion to take pictures, in one case pausing by a shrine and ceramic statue of a Mongolia shaman by the roadside. As we pulled off the main highway, the side roads quickly deteriorated to nothing but washed out dirt paths and a couple tracks. Now I know why there are handles inside the vehicle.
We spent the bulk of the afternoon exploring Hustai National Park, home of the ancestor of the modern horse, the takhii, or Prezwelski horse. A few were sent to zoos in the late 19th century, then the were finally extinct in the wild. In the 1960's, a dozen were re-introduced into the wild of the park, and today nearly 300 roam free. They are beautiful beasts, with short manes, a milky coffee coat with black legs and tail. We sat for a while to observe a few herds in their watering hole. Water of which is so clear one can't see where the surface begins, where nearly a whisper of a breeze is the only indication that water is present.
Camp has been made, the sun is setting, and a chill is seeping into the air. Mosquito bites mark my initiation. It is quiet, the only orchestra that of the birds and toads, the occasional thunder of hooves nearby.
Behind me Fay is practicing her karate into the sun, breathing the fragrant air.
This is Mongolia.
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