Photo: Erik exits our yurt for a horseback riding adventure; our host lassos the ponies; and Erik and I embark on our ride.
My daughter is at a camp this week where the highlight has most definitely been the opportunity to ride horses every day. Her daily tales of equestrian adventure remind me of the last time I sat on a horse – or pony, anyway – seven years ago in Mongolia, just outside the country’s capital, Ulaan Baator.
Erik and I were moving back to the US from Hong Kong and decided to travel from Asia to Europe via train. Our first stop was Mongolia, where we stayed in a yurt, a circular tent that is still the country’s most common form of habitation, and accepted an offer from our hosts to ride ponies one day.
We accepted this invitation before we understood that it entailed the male members of the family riding out onto the steppe to catch wild ponies for our jaunt into the countryside. It was my husband’s first time ever on a horse, and I think for this reason they selected for us the oldest beasts they could find to take us to the neighboring group of yurts for tea and conversation.
We huddled around a small table, where I was handed a newborn goat to cuddle and my host apologized for not being able to serve us fermented mare’s milk, the national drink, because it was the wrong season. My daughter’s experience this week with horses is more mainstream – at a local farm camp – but to her, of course, no less exciting.
See other travel photos at Delicious Baby.