The Open Steppe

Why in all the universe do I not ride a horse more often? We had a pretty wonderful time traversing grassy planes and rolling over infinite hills. Even if it did start snowing on us within our first half hour of riding. Oh dear god of the sky, that steppe sure can get cold! It put even our maximum season count merino tramping thermals to shame. Of our 3 days riding, the first 2 were mostly spent with us paying special care to not let our fingers or toes stay numb for too long. A good trot or gallop always helps. Yes sir, we galloped. We can do that if we want. We gained some pretty sweet skills. You do the math.

We visited the ruins of a monastery that was destroyed by Stalin in 1937. It is set in a deep valley fringed with pines. It is quiet and peaceful and you can see why the monks chose it as a site to ponder upon their Buddhist reflections. We stayed in a ger camp nearby, as the sub-zero temperatures kind of killed the urge to camp out under the stars. Gers are excellent inventions.

Because we started as powerfully weak amateurs, we were worried we might be riding alongside some master backpacking horse knights. But instead we had the great pleasure of sharing our freezing yet fantastic adventures with a Harvard Professor and his Chinese colleague named Dungeon. This cerebral couple had spent a few days in Ulaan Baator (that's UB to us locals) working on UNICEF-related issues with the Mongolian government and had come out to the steppe for some well earned R&R. That's how we formed our horse gang. The four of us bonded over Mongolian cuisine and travel tales (the Prof had visited 85 countries and had piercingly brilliant tales from each one) and the next morning set out to meet the horses who were to be our friends on the wild steppe for the next three days.

Our two guides (who were charming and delightful fellows with top-shelf horse riding skills) unerringly selected the perfect equine companions for each of us. Mine was a hardcore yet wise red-head cool-dude with attitude, like myself. Sophie's was a stubborn introverted chap named Donkey. He mainly wanted to eat and was disinclined to obey anything Sophie said. But she liked him a lot. We all inched carefully out of the ger camp with high hopes and very little finesse. But by the time we galloped on home two days later, we were flying like natural-born riders of the steppe.

When on any horse, you feel elevated and proud, but when you look at our photos please don't judge us by the size of our steeds! The Mongolian breed of horse we rode is a pretty small horse, but very strong. They sure sprinted the last valley when they knew they were almost home to hang out with their horse-homies.

The Mongolian steppe we traversed has a peculiar feel. Even though a certain vast stretch looked empty, there is endless debris from centuries of nomads setting camps and having parties everywhere. We were only a few hours drive from the capital, and you can't go a minute without seeing a skull of a horse/cow/goat or a vodka bottle or the sole of a child's shoe.