A horse trek to the eight lakes

We drove northwards out of the Gobi and into the heartlands of Central Mongolia. The vast flat desert evolved into more undulating grasslands with yaks starting appear for the first time in our trip. We were heading to a nomadic family in the Orkhon Valley who would be taking us on an eight day horse riding and camping extravaganza.

To our surprise, we were to be accompanied by four people and nine horses! We couldn’t believe such a big turnout was just for us. We had agonised over bringing as little as possible to spare the horses, so we were amused to see an entire stove and full set of pots and pans being lifted onto one of the packhorses.

The crew coming with us was Oyunaa; who would cook for the group, Khurlee and Ganbaatar; who would look after the horses, and of course, our guide Byamba. Tugsuu would stay behind and ger-sit while we were gone.

Day 1

After saddling up, we set off, choo-chooing our horses across the valley, under perfect blue skies. We say choo as that’s what you say to make a Mongolia horse move. Con had a speedy sandy-coloured horse with black zebra stripes on its legs. Jack had a taller bay horse who was happiest when plodding at the back. Despite much laughing from Con and the Mongolians, Jack was very happy with life in the slow lane.

We passed herds of yaks, sheep, goats and horses as we moved up the valley, stopping for lunch by a little babbling brook.

We made it to camp on the edge of some woods. In the evening we lit a bonfire and chatted with our new companions. They were keen to discuss everything from climate change to our perspective on world politics. In turn, we asked them about their feelings towards Russia and China, and their history.

Day 2

We woke up to a real surprise this morning… snow! We had been warned it would get colder and may snow, but given yesterday’s sunshine we weren’t expecting such a sudden dump.

We rode further into the woods and quickly started to climb over some very rough ground. It’s amazing what the horses can clamber over, and we let them pick their own path through the rocks and frozen mud. There was a trail of wolf prints alongside us, which Ganbaatar said had been made since the snow this morning, but nobody seemed particularly worried about this.

Camp this evening was beside an enormous lake called the “belly button”. It was freezing cold, so we lit another bonfire. After a warming bowl of mutton soup, we stood around the fire and drank vodka. The Mongolian tradition is that before you take a shot, you must first sing to the group, so we whipped out a few sea shanties and Christmas carols. Their songs are very beautiful and they sing them proudly. It was a very atmospheric evening.

Day 3

Today was a day that really challenged us. It was bright and clear, but so cold that there was ice on the outside of our sleeping bags! It was -5 today, which is pretty humbling given it plummets to -40 in the winter here. Unlike us, none of the Mongolians seemed cold, wrapped in their thick deels (jackets).

We ate breakfast gathered around a fire, before riding around the eight lakes in this area. The ride was beautiful, but very cold, and when we stopped for lunch, we lit another fire to warm up. We noticed we had some little holes in our clothes from the sparks, so we tried not to get too close, but it was hard not too.

Back at camp, we lit two further fires, one before and one after dinner. Everyone shared stories of their closest wolf encounters. We didn’t have much to add!

Tonight was going to be -14…

Day 4

Miraculously warm in our zipped-together sleeping bags, we woke up to a gorgeous day. Today we retraced our steps back down the valley to Oyunaa’s ger where we started.

Homeward bound, the horses had a real spring in their step, Jack’s horse in particular. He was sometimes quite hard to pull back, which was a bit of change of pace! The Mongolian horses are smaller than western ones, and have quite choppy short sharp steps. By day 4, Jack’s bum was starting to feel it.

Back in her ger, Oyunaa prepared us a delicious traditional feasting meal of Khorkhog, accompanied by warm milk vodka, and a game of Mongolian whist. We are writing a separate post on Mongolian food and drink, so more on this later.