Mongolia Chapter 4: And Then We Rode ...

And then, on Friday, we rode. The plan is to get up. Ride. Have lunch. Ride to a Naadam festival to see some horse races and then set up camp in a campsite we'll stay in for two nights (the only campsite we're in for more than one night). Also, this is the only day I rode Jerome, and it was pretty miserable. He wanted to be the lead horse, badly. I didn't like my saddle. He and I were at odds the whole time. I started calling him little miss sunshine because he was acting like a bitchy San Francisco queen. But even without my sweet, sweet horse I got the next day and the constant ache in my arm from having to pull on him, the day is pretty damn close to perfect.

We break camp in the morning and head out over the field. It's hot, but not miserable. The flies aren't out yet. There's no sign of any kind of rain. The excitement of the first day of riding and the beautiful scenery is everywhere. And here is where I will talk about scenery. Skip ahead if that's going to make you bored.

I'll reference how beautiful things are a lot from here on in, I'm sure, since we were out in the outback. I'll post pictures, but thee truth is that nothing I say or post will give you the right idea because so much of what was so beautiful about the Mongolian landscape was it's expansiveness. I've seen fields of lush green and wildflowers before, but never fields that roll on and on and on like this seemingly forever. And everything was in bloom. And you would ride through these mountain passes or on a road for a while and then suddenly you were in the middle of these crazy fields that went on forever.



And so that's what we did all morning, rode through this amazing landscape. And then we saw the lunch vans.



The lunch vans were usually one of our favorite parts of the day (unless the ride was short and then they were kind of an interruption). Firstly, we had an amazing cook on the trip. Worth every penny of her tip. Secondly, every meal was an amazing three course spectacular, usually with a salad, a soup and a main course (and some kind of snacky dessert). And beer, though many of us learned the hard way after the first day that the move was not to drink beer in the heat of the afternoon and then get back on the horse for an afternoon ride. By the time we met up with the lunch vans, which always found beautiful spots for us, the table was set up and the coolers were out. And after lunch we would lay around in the grass in whatever beautiful spot they had picked just enjoying everything until it was time to ride again. Lunches were not rushed. They were about enjoying the beautiful countryside.



Though, you know, lest you think this is too picturesque, lunches did come accompanies by hoards of flies. Here are some pictures of mine and Pookie's hats during our first lunch break so you can kind of get an idea. By the end of the trip, you still noticed that you were covered in flies, just not as much. Anyway, our first lunch is evidence of how good lunch is going to be, and honestly, now that I'm back in my real life, one of the things I miss most of all is two hours in the middle of the day laying around in a field with a salad and some water.



After the first of a series of the world's most delightful lunch breaks, we head back out. We pass through a local Naadam festival where there's an archery competition going on. Archery is the least popular of the three Naadam games, so we're actually kind of lucky to catch one. The best part of this is that the competitors shoot at a tiny target that is very, very far away. And the judges stand around the target. Like, as in, the judges stand right there while arrows fly at them. Perhaps you remember the story about how I accidentally shot my high school gym teacher (the one with the glass eye) during archery class. I would not stand a long distance away from some archery shooters while they aim for a tiny target. I'm just saying.



Mandaa wants us to get going though, because we want to catch some afternoon horse racing, and the races are very far away. So we head off at a trot.

Let's talk about trotting. Trotting is what Mongolian horses do most of the time. They can trot FOREVER. Trotting may just possibly be the most uncomfortable horse gait around. It's like jackhammering up and down in the saddle, or alternatively you can stand and absorb the trot in your knees. Either way you will feel it later. We trotted a lot. Most of most rides involved trotting.

Anyway, we go on this stunning ride that I'm completely enjoying even with Jerome. And finally, Mandaa says, "We're going to have to get off the horses and have Dava take them to camp because otherwise we won't make the races. They are finishing faster than we expected." So, actually really sadly, we get off the horses and meet up with the van. But in the end it's worth it because we have a splendid afternoon at the races.

Also, it's a good thing, because whoever did the distance estimation for how far it was from where we were to the race site was distance-challenged. We would have been riding through the night to get there! In the back of the van, we were all like, "Who thought we were going to make this distance on horses?" And Manda and Nia are talking in the front seat, when suddenly she says, "It looks like the distance estimation was wrong." And we're all like, "You know it, mama!" (Okay, maybe that was just me).

We get there before the last race participants hit the finish line, so we have some time to wander around the festivities. We find all kinds of gems.

We find Mongolian fast food! Mongolian fast food in the countryside are these delicious meat pies. I almost wished that lunch had not been so good so that I would not be so full so that I could eat a whole one instead of just a bite of Siri's. And here is what you will find in a mobile, festival, Mongolian meat pie stand. You will find a sheep tied up behind the tent. Then you will find a meat grinder mounted on a motorcycle. Then you will find a pot of meat frying. Discern for yourself the process there. But the meat pies were scrumptious.



We find a bar fight, or the equivalent thereof! I'm told, but can't confirm, that the fight between these two young (drunk) men breaks out because one of them says that the other is too Russian. What I know is that these two (drunk) young men proceed to first fight from the backs of their horses and then proceed to get down and take it to the ground. While this happens your typical crowd of bystanders gather to watch, though in this case it is made crazy by the fact that the bystanders are on horseback. And then some girl comes to break up the fight. First, she literally kicks one of the boys in the ass. Then she grabs the other one and puts his drunken self back up on his horse and leads him off. It's really amazing.



We find a Mongolian ice cream stand! At a Mongolian ice cream stand, you ride your horse up to the ice cream stand and they hand your ice cream to you. It's like a drive through!



We find Cool George! Cool George is a local who notices that we're white and have beer, so he comes over to introduce himself (and because he wants beer), and LZ YP breaks out her phrasebook. His name, by the way, wasn't really Cool George, but it sounded like "Cool George" so that's what we called him. We have fun hanging out with him.



And then there are races, and the races are just as exciting as the first time. And I learn a fun fact, which is that if a rider falls off of a horse during the race but the horse finishes, the horse just gets moved back one place, not disqualified. So if a horse finished third, but his rider fell off during the race, he'd actually get fourth place. This seems like a reasonable rule, except that the next morning at the last race, the first place horse finished with no rider and they let him keep first place. But the best rules are flexible rules.

We have a great day at the race. Here are some pictures.




Then we hop back into the van to meet up at camp with the horses and support vehicles. And I'm not even making this up - on our way out of Naadam, we see these two beautiful Mongolian girls galloping bareback. Yep. We're in Mongolia.

And may I just say, our campsite is amazing. There's a lovely little river running through it, and it's right next to some trees where the horses can be tied, and there are almost no flies! It's, for lack of a better word, idyllic. And dinner is as good as lunch was.




Did I mention that the day was pretty much perfect? As was much of the next day, when we went to ...