Riding in the Mongolian Wilderness

I finally got connection so I am going to quickly update my blog because I probably won’t have connection for very long, everything is fine here. We are currently on our way to the nomadic home stay. No time to upload photos, will do that when I have proper connection.

We woke up full of energy and excitement as this was the day that we first got to meet and ride our horses. In the morning we packed up all our gear and loaded it onto the Russian Fourgons that will carry all our gear while we rode the horses. The wranglers came in the morning, introduced themselves and then began the safety briefing on riding horses.
The wrangler explained how to get on and off, stop, approach and handle the horse. After he finished explaining the other wranglers gave a horse to each person based upon their height and body build. I got a dark brown horse with a small white dot in between his eyes, so I decided to call him spot.
We all got onto our horses and waited for the wranglers to finish helping people. During this time we got to see the personality traits of some of the horses. Some were very dominant and wanted to be at the front of the group while others wouldn’t stop eating. It was interesting and funny to see the different types of horses.

We started our journey to the next campsite which took around 6 hours. We crossed the green Mongolian steppes and over hills with windy paths. During the whole trip my horse was really well behaved but rather slow. He would walk slow and then trot to catch up with the front and then go back to walking slow. It was still a very enjoyable ride and the view was so surreal and spectacular.

We had 3 stops for a short break and also lunch. After riding most of the day we arrived at our campsite. My butt was sore and my leg muscles were very stiff but I was able to walk for a bit so they eventually stopped hurting. Our camping spot was really nice, it was right beside a river and a forest tree line which made the view really unbelievable.
At the campsite we had to set up everything for the night including hot water, a toilet, food scraps spot and a fire spot.

We went walking up into the forest and it was exactly like a forest you would see in the movies.

We set up our tents and organised dinner with the wranglers. We were served mutton noodle soup with vegetables and afterwards they cooked mutton offal. Offal is all the left over organs and meat that isn’t used during dinner. I tried one of the Mongolian specialties called blood sausage. They get the sheep’s intestines, fill it with blood and then cook it. It was surprisingly nice and tasted a lot like actual sausage. They also gave me the liver to go with it, so I ate both of those.

After dinner we stood by the fire for a bit to warm up and then headed back to our tents to sleep for the night.

The next day we went through the same procedure. This day was very wintery, it was raining throughout the night and also the day which made riding a challenge. The temperature resulted in me putting on 4 layers of tops, 3 layers of pants and 3 layers of socks just to stay moderately warm. Also while we were riding the wind rolling over hills hit us pretty hard which made it even worse. Saying that, the cold made the surroundings even more beautiful if it was even possible.

This day the horses seemed to be rather aggravated so some people decided to go in the transport van. I continued riding my horse with a few other people from the group and we ended up being fine. It also meant that none of us could open any zipper pockets or rub our clothes extensively just incase the horses get spooked by the noise. My horse was being really stubborn this day and continuously slowing down to the end of the group so I would have to keep yelling Choo (Means go in Mongolian). The wranglers even had to come up behind me to yell and whip the back of my horse to make it trot faster.

During the middle of the day the clouds started to part and the sun finally came out which made the temperature rise a bit. The view of the sun over the rolling hills made all of us forget about the cold because it was that breath taking. We arrived at our camp site and once again we had to setup everything ready for the night. We collected the water to boil and had dinner with hot drinks which was very enjoyable after such a cold day.

After a good dinner of noodles with vegetables and meat, we went to our tents to sleep.

The final day of horse riding followed the same as the rest of the days. As we headed off the wranglers spoke to us about our journey during the day. They said we will pass over a series of 3 sets of hills and that we will pass through dense forest so stick in a single line. As we headed off through the wilderness it started to rain again which made the trek even more breath taking. Almost straight away we entered the forest which looked completely unreal. We then entered the plains again and rode across the 3 sets of hills. 

TO BE CONTINUED when I have connection again.