Today we sleep in a little. 8am! Breakfast is a lovely frittata and some kind of veggie soup. They have actual milk on the table and real coffee in a pot - that’s a welcome treat.
We don’t have too far to travel today, we need to get through Ulaanbataar and with the recent flooding the route is up for debate. We decide to go through the city as we know the roads won’t be flooded that way. The traffic isn’t bad at first but then it’s terrible once we are inside UB proper. Traffic seems to be a big issue here. Compared to other major cities we’ve been to, cars seem to follow basic rules of the road better than others. They do tailgate heavily and rely very much on their braking at the last minute. They also don’t use running lights at all. They pass freely on both sides, including the shoulder. When passing in the oncoming lane, they will drive for several minutes in the wrong lane in long rows of cars and then when an oncoming car comes and flashes their lights, everyone scrambles to get back into the correct lane and creates major slowdowns. Not super effective but with so many speeds of drivers, I guess it helps to move things along in the long run. They also don’t think twice about driving through a ditch to avoid a slow down or road stop. They just bypass using dirt tracks.
The water damage from the floods is really apparent as we make our way through the city. The main river is still raging and many of the ger homes are badly under water. It’s troubling to think of how many households have likely been adversely affected.
We slowly work our way west and out of UB. Sara point out the market where herders bring their livestock for slaughter. There was a similar smaller one on the east side of town. They are not allowed to be brought into UB. There are more farms and towns to the west of the city hence the larger market. You can see all the trucks fillers with sheep waiting their fates.
Just beyond the city limits we see the location of the Nadaam Festival horse races. A little further we head off the paved highway and start down a series of dirt roads over and around a series of rolling hills.
With the recent rain certain areas have not yet dried out and unfortunately car 1 ends of stuck deep in the mud. I’m mildly panicked that we will have the same fate but our driver finds a path through. Time to get the tow rope out! Thankfully we get out without any major difficulty.
It’s a beautiful area that we are driving through. Lots of farmland and we see farm equipment for the first time.
We finally make it to the Hustei National Park. It is famous for the successful reintroduction of the Przewalski horse, called "takhi" by Mongolians.
It became extinct in the wild in 1969 and, since 1992, has been successfully reintroduced to Hustai from zoos around the world. This has been an international effort monitored by The Foundation for the Przewalski horse, based in the Netherlands and MACNE (Mongolian Association for Conservation of Nature and the Environment).
We get checked in and have lunch. Dave and I have an unusual concrete ger. No bugs for us tonight! Lol.
The place is filled with tourists and has a fun spirit to it. We haven’t seen this many people at camp so far.
We are advised that our best chance of seeing the horses will be just after supper when they come down from the hillsides to drink from the river. So we have an afternoon of leisure which we spend chatting, reading, napping and listening to music in our ger.
After our dinner at 6pm we head into the park. Not far down the road we spot our first herd of horses just after seeing a pack of fox cubs climb out of their den for an evening play.
The horses are fascinating. They look very much like a zebra or a donkey. They have 66 chromosomes compared to the domestic horse which has 64. A donkey has 62 and when crossed with a horse results in a mule which has 63. They travel is small herds with a stallion at the helm.
We make our way in further and come across a series of herds. We stop and just sit around to watch them and their interactions. Given that it’s still early in the season there are a number of foals in each herd. Adorable!
The stallions seem to be darker in shade and we are lucky enough to see some minor interactions between the studs. Making sure they each know how close they can get to their harem! We also witness a herd come galloping down the hillside, their hood beats a crescendo down the mountain. Lastly we witness 3 young males trying to coyly test how close they can get to another herd. Not that close before the herd stud sets them straight. We didn’t get to witness anything too aggressive. From some of the photos in the info centre it looks like it can get pretty gruesome.
I’ll have to do some more reading about the horses. It’s a success story for sure on the reintroduction of these horses into the wild, but the herd is still small and they have a long way to go.
Once we’ve had our full we slowly make our way back out. There are marmots everywhere and we also see a herd of Red Deer as we head back to camp. The rack on the male is unlike anything I’ve ever seen in person. I think we got quite lucky in our sitings!
When we get back we sit outside for awhile. There are a bunch of birds flying around with quite an interesting call and Erik is at the bar making friends with a guy that formerly worked at Relic Games in Vancouver. What a small world! He’s there volunteering with the research team for 4 weeks.
It’s a beautiful place and this was a huge highlight for me on this trip.
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