A Yak of a Good Time!

We got up early and headed out of Khomen Tal National Park by 7-ish.  We had a plane to catch.  I did keep The Baby out of the camera bag in hopes of getting some good Saiga antelope shots.  We got a few herds, but my shots were pathetic. This is as cleaned up as I could get them.  

The males have bluish necks and appear to change color in the distance when they move.  They have these big, long, faces, too, that look sad (according to pictures I've seen from better photographers than me).  I had to try to steady The Baby on my own because I packed up the tripod.  Not the best call.  These antelope are difficult to shoot.  If you get close enough to see them, they move.  They're skittish little beasts.  And when they move, they have some serious speed!  That, coupled with my tremor, made my video a little difficult to watch, but I'm gonna give it to you anyway.

This is running and I have not sped it up at all.

They walk very fast, too!  I haven't sped this one up, either.

After the failures with the Saiga, I was happy to take some good shots of the sand grouse that moved much slower, but move they did!

It didn't take long before we hit the paved road, and I packed up The Baby.  I kept the Lumix out because you never know when you're going to need a shot out the window of a moving vehicle, and I did take a few of those, too!

Mongolians like to put up dinosaur statues, too!

These are offerings to the gods and concerns/wishes.  The local shaman will maintain these spots, periodically removing the attachments and doing what they need to do to keep them sanctified.

People driving a small-ish herd of cattle and goats down the road.  This was not the entire herd, just the rear guard.

After a very nice family-style, delicious lunch in a restaurant, Bina took us to the airport in Altai and bade us farewell.  He has some business he must attend to before heading back to Ulaanbaatar, so Ariuna met us at the airport and took care of us from there.  Our plane was a bit late, but she had everything under control.  She and the new driver picked us up from the airport and took us to Terelj National Park, where we drove far down a dirt/mud (concept of a) road to the Chenggis-13 Resort on Chenggis Mountain.  This hotel is reputed to be located at the place where Chenggis Khan spent many winters.  To tell the truth, I was really excited to be housed inside with a bathroom just down the hall.  A ger is nice for a while, but it gets old after a bit.

We got up the next morning and headed to the yak herders.  I'm not sure how they get back and forth during the summer, but this winter has been much wetter here than on the western steppe in the Margaz Mountains, with lots of snow blanketing the frozen water, holding in the chill even though the air felt warmer here to me.  My companion kept track of the temperature, but I forgot what she said every day, so I can't tell you if my feeling was accurate.  The river here was still frozen solid and snow covered, though.  They even do sleigh rides if you want them.

We stopped for a squirrel who wanted to get his good side on the pictures!  Check out those fuzzy ears!  His tale was fuzzy, too!

We got to the herders' home and met Amarah and his wife, Bangalore.  They were lovely people.  They have this home for spring, but live in a ger during other seasons.  They have 60 yaks and 40 cows and use and/or sell all parts of them.  They comb the baby yaks for the first three years, gathering the ultra soft fur that comes off from combing for wool.  They also sell yak milk, yak butter, yellow oil, and Aaruul candies (made from the milk curds).  We tried them all.  The milk is acceptable, but I'm not a fan of milk of pretty much any kind.  The butter was delicious.  Probably the best butter I've ever tasted.  The yellow oil is a runoff from the milk as it's heated for the butter and Aaruul and was used as oil in making the noodles we had for lunch.  Bangalore has many presses for the Aaruul and sells them at various places.  A full set can go for as much as the equivalent of $100.  She gave us a cake and a side piece as a gift as we left.  Knowing the traditions, Ariuna made sure we had gifts to give them when we arrived.  These are absolutely beautiful.  I cannot deal with the taste, though.  But keep in mind that I'm not a fan of a lot of dairy products, especially yogurts or curds.  

One corner of their home

Molds for the Aaruul

Stacked Aaruul.  This grouping can sell for the equivalent of $100.  The picture is taken from somewhere on the internet, not mine.

Showing us how the expensive grouping is stacked

This is how she just pulls that delicious butter off the top of the milk

Soon after this demonstration and tasting, Amarah and a neighbor came driving the yaks to the enclosure by the house.

 

This is a brand new baby who is too small to go out in the pastures with Mom.

He's quite happy that Mom's back!

We didn't actually ride because they are at winter weight, but Amarah rode a bit and we sat on a couple.

And we got to play with the baby!

We went back in for lunch, where Amarah helped Bangalore make the noodles for the Tsuivan, a traditional meal of yak meat and noodles.  It was delicious, but I couldn't eat nearly as much as Bangalore put on my plate!  

Yak meat is good, at least the way Bangalore cooked it.  I don't think Bruce would appreciate me using the knife this way, even with my kevlar glove on (even though it's how it's supposed to be done - I'm just not coordinated enough)!  Bangalore has mad skills!

After lunch, we went horseback riding.  Amarah had brought two horses up saddled.  The Mongolian saddle is very different from anything I had ridden on before.  It is a combination of a western and forward seat saddle.  It has a forward pitched seat, like a jump saddle, but a high pommel like a western saddle.  The skirts are also longer and thicker than either a western or jump saddle.  You have to use your legs right because the saddle won't let you pivot on your knee.  It took a lot of getting used to.  Because of the snow and ice, we only walked, so I can't tell you anything about the gaits of the Mongolian horse, but the walk was fairly smooth after I got used to the saddle.

Buural (the tan) and Khul (the blanketed), our horses, all saddled up and waiting for us.

Amarah on Khul and me on Buural

Ariunaon Khul and me on Buural

Finally, the day was turning to dusk, and Amarah and Bangalore had to settle the animals for the night (we had already sent the yaks back to pasture, but the horses had to be cared for), and we had a drive back to our lodge, so we said fairwell after taking selfies with all of us.  Bangalore gave us each pieces of Aaruul to take with us.

It was an amazing day, and I have now ridden horses in Asia.  That makes, in order, North America, Europe, South America, and Asia.  I need to return to Australia and Africa and make sure I ride horses in each of those.  There are no horses in Antarctica, so I don't think I can ride on all seven continents.

The One Where I Geek Out Over Horses

We got up this morning and went out of to search for wolves.  The park ranger who took us said he thinks there are two packs of 5 or 6 wolves each.  We searched multiple places, but we failed.  No wolves were seen on this trip.  We did see another herd of Takhi, though.  This time, Sunny, the biologist who specializes in the Takhi (or Przewalski Horse) was with us, so we got lots of questions answered.

When I was a teenager, I was on the 4-H Horse Club's horse bowl team.  That's a team that competes in competitions with other clubs on horse-related trivia.  One of the things we learned on that team is that the Przewalski Horse was the bridge between the "hippus" animals and the "equus" animals we now know as horses.  This is not true.  It very well may be what science thought at the time, but genome mapping and other things were not known waaay back then.  As science learns more, things we thought sometimes change, too.  I'm getting ready to geek out on you, so consider yourself warned!  We now know that both the modern horse and Przewalski's horse evolved from early equus.  However, Przewalski's horse (known as Takhi in Mongolian) is the only remaining truly wild horse in the world, making it its own species in the equus genus - just like the zebra is its own equus species.  Once the horse was domesticated, breeding was controlled, which kept its chromosomal makeup stable with 66 chromosomes.  This is the case whether this domesticated horse has ever been tamed or not, so it includes those wild ponies on Chincoteaque Island and the wild mustangs in the western US.  It also includes all the untamed livestock horses in Mongolia and other countries where horse meat is eaten.  This is because those untamed horses have descended from horses that were previously domesticated so that the chromosomal makeup has been stable at 66 without the massive amount of years required for a Robertsonian translocation

The Takhi, on the other hand, continued evolving naturally and eventually underwent a common Robertsonian translocation (a fusing of some chromosomes) so that it now only has 64 chromosomes, even though the 14 Takhi that remained in the world were in zoos.  This is why the Taklhi looks more similar to the cave drawings of horses than the domestic horse does.

Cave painting in Lascaux Cave in Dordogne, France (dated Paleolithic) (Credit World History Encyclopedia)

The last confirmed sighting of a Takhi in the wild prior to reintroduction was in 1969.  At that time, there were 14 individuals in various zoos around the world.  To prevent extinction, some of those zoos started an intensive breeding program.  Beginning in the 1990s, they began reintroducing the Przewalski horse to various places in the wild, including in three locations in Mongolia.  One of those locations is Khoman Tal National Park in Mongolia.  In 2003, they fenced in 14,000 hectares of the Khomen Tal steppe to protect it from overgrazing and to ensure there was water from the Zavkhan River.  Then 22 zoo-born horses were transported from France.  Because of the success of this reintroduction, Khoman Tal National Park was recognized in 2020, and expanded to 411,403 hectares, with the original 14,000 hectares remaining fenced.  The expansion of the protected area by designation as a national park has also helped the populations of the Saiga antelope, the Mongolian gazelle, and other animals of the western steppe.  Estimates are that for the three locations with the Takhi reintroduction in Mongolia, there are approximately 900 Takhi in the country, with approximately 150 of them in Khoman Tal National Park.

Anyway, we saw lots of Takhi and we had Sunny, the Takhi biologist, with us!  (Sunny's name in Mongolian means sunny, so that's the name she goes by in English.)  She explained to us that the Takhi are all the same color.  The color variations we were seeing during our visit was the result of them being in various stages of shedding their winter coats.  She also told us that in 2014, anthrax invaded the park.  They took steps to control the spread, by testing, quarantine, and treatment.  When a horse passed, they buried it and fenced the area around it for further quarantine.  With all of these steps, they were able to limit the loss to only five horses, which I think is amazing!  We also asked about potential hybridization.  Though the Takhi and domestic horses can breed and have viable offspring, Sunny said their experience has been that the offspring have not survived the few times it has happened in their herds.  

Following breakfast, we went searching for owls.  There's only one place in the park to find owls, so we didn't have to search a whole lot.  We drove down to the river and saw some whooper swans chilling out in the cold water.  They flew away before I could get a decent shot.  I usually say a bad shot is better than no shot, but these were even too bad to qualify for that.  We found nests for

the eagle owl (who didn't move)

and the bearded vulture (who gave me a couple of poses)

We came back to the lodge for lunch and some information about the park and the reintroduction program, including the challenges the park is facing with reintroduction, including plans to remove the fence and let the Takhi roam throughout and the other animals in the park graze in what is currently the protected area.  Then we went out for more Takhi.  I'll never get my fill of these lovely and unique horses.  I've been wanting to see them since the late 1970s, when I learned about them, and now that I have, I can't seem to get my fill.  I won't bore you with aaaallllll of the shots I took while we were at the park.  But I will give you a few of the more unique ones.  They have a stallion in the park who has lost his herd and is cast out.  For some reason, he has not decided to join a bachelor herd and wanders alone.  Maybe the bachelor herd won't accept him because he has become disfigured.  His name is NoTail because he has lost his tail, potentially in the fight when he lost his herd.  Being alone makes him vulnerable to wolf or other predator attacks, but he has survived thus far.

The Takhi are also matriarchal even though a herd only has one stallion.  It is the lead mare who tells everybody what to do.  The male is only there for mating.  In this herd, The matriarch was putting many of the others in their places.  I missed the best one, but I did catch a smaller discipline.  I'm not sure what the other mare was doing wrong, but she was having none of it!

We also saw a large herd of Mongolian gazelle.  They're just adorable little critters!

After a very productive day, we headed back to the lodge, getting ready to move again in the morning for more adventures!  Again, Soaring Expeditions knocked it out of the park, delivering more than I was hoping for!

Horses Coming!!

Today we left the snow leopard camp, which according to my phone was somewhere close to Santmargaz, Zavkhan, Mongolia, if anybody's really that interested.  All I could tell you before looking it up was that it was in the Margaz Mountains in the middle of nowhere.  Looking at my ger, it looked so lonely with everything packed up and not exploded all over the place.  Same thing in the meal ger.  All of you who know me would not be surprised to know I took up  more than my fair share of space around the charger areas.  But I was more than happy to let anybody use my cords or chargers if I wasn't using them.  I had bought cheap hand warmers before leaving in case the Chinese border patrol decided they were batteries.  I didn't want to risk losing my nice penguin hand warmers the kids got me for Christmas a couple of years ago.  Bina said I might need them for the yak herders, so I gave him one pair (along with their bag and charging cord) and showed him how they worked and told him I'd send the other pair back with Ariuna before I left town.  I would much rather they be with the guys in camp than a border guard confiscate them.  My things that had been living in our car had already been transferred to the car we would be taking for the next part of the trip, so after breakfast, all that was left was the goodbyes.  All the trackers came out to see us, and we were changing drivers, too.  I tried to give the traditional greeting that I had seen many of them do with each other.  It ended up being fist bumps, and they all seemed to be really excited to fist bump me before we left.  I had grown to lean on every one of them and I trusted them very much.  It was a pretty tearful goodbye.  This has been an amazing trip so far.

Our drive was most of the day.  We drove by the sand dunes.  They are fed from the western part of the mountain range.  They run about 200 km (124 miles) long and about 10-20 km (6-12 miles) wide.  The highest dune is about 200 m (650 ft) high.

Then we stopped by the salt lake.

And we drove through the dunes!  This was bouncy and fun.

Before long, we came upon a little town.  I think the town (not the snow leopard camp) is actually called Santmargaz.  It was across the river.  During the winter, it's much closer to the camp.  Once the spring warm-up starts, you have to go all the way to the bridge to get to town.  We could still see ice on it, but there were spots that were melting pretty well and the running water was visible.  Not really safe for driving over at this point.

The bridge was a little old and worn in many spots, but we made it across.

We drove through town.  

And stopped at this little store called the Sample Market.  I resumed my attempts to remember cyrillics from almost learning them many, many years ago when I worked with Russian linguists in Germany.  Mongolia uses a modified cyrillic alphabet.  I didn't do too poorly, if I do say so myself.  Of course, I downloaded a cheat sheet for the letters that weren't in the Russian alphabet or the ones I had forgotten.

She had a huge assortment of things for such a small building.  Various alcohols, candies, vegetables, pelts, pantry staples, and other things.  We tried some milk vodka that the shopkeeper made herself and got some snacks.  I got some Mongolian candy to take home.

The carrots here are even bigger than they were in Ecuador!!

After leaving the market and getting gas, we went to another part of the river (over a much newer bridge) and had lunch.  You can see the ice still there, but also the running water in spots.

Then we entered Khoman Tal National Park.  After driving a while, we saw some saiga antelope running off in the distance.  These guys are fast!  This was the best shot I got.  They moved waaay too fast for me to follow them with the camer.  One minute they were there, and the next they were gone!

We also got a good look at the Mongolian ground jay.  This one sat still long enough and was close enough for a really good shot!

Soon after, we entered a fenced area, which is where the Przewalski horse (Takhi, in Mongolian) is kept so that it is more easily managed.  Eventually, they will remove the fencing, but not just yet.  The Takhi in the wild went extinct in the past, but thanks to controlled breeding programs in a few zoos around the world, they have been reintroduced to a few places, and Khoman Tal National Park in Mongolia is one of those.  The guys at this camp are doing a great job taking care of these wild horses and keeping their numbers high and growing, managing ground cover and vegetation for them to eat.  We got there and had our first showers since going to the snow leopard camp (Oh was it glorious!), and settled into our ger.  It was nice to have overnight electricity, too, so I plugged in Darth Vader (my CPAP) and was settled in early for an all-night sleep with no waking up unable to breathe!  Suddenly, there was a knock on the door and we heard someone yell, "Horses coming!"  So we just had to throw our boots and coats on and head out to see them!

This was a fairly large herd, and the stallion's name was Laniekea.  There are about 15 herds in the park, ranging for 4-14 members.  I had both cameras and was so tired that I was having trouble even holding the little Lumix, so lots of my pictures were blurry, even when the horses were standing still.  But when the ranger came driving up and scared them off, I was able to get them running away with my phone.

Then we went back to our ger and had nice dreams of Takhi after nice showers and me getting to breathe all night!