Scrolling Facebook in the middle of the night, I came across the profile of a lady with an eagle on her arm. She was mounted on a horse. The post said, “If you can’t stop thinking about something, it’s a sign from the universe you should do it…”
The following morning, I woke and wondered if I had imagined the horse-riding-eagle-lady. I found her. “We still have a place or two available on The Great Noman Expedition starting First of July in Mongolia. -Come ride with us from the bottom to the top by camel, horse, yak and reindeer…”
No way, it was seriously 19 June! I hadn’t ridden a horse in about four years.
My mum lives in Melbourne, I called her. “Only you would be crazy enough to ride a reindeer from China to Russia right about now, Amelia!” Laughing, I reassured her, “It’s ok mum, the Russians are looking the other way!”
As a last-minute wild card entry, I joined the expedition.
Ten ladies from across the world met in Ulaanbaatar, ready for the trip of a life time! Three Aussies, five Kiwis, a Canadian and Yank. I know it sounds like the start of a joke, but these women had the grit to ride over 1200kms across the desert, the steppe country, mountains, valleys and up into the snow where we stayed in a tee-pee near the Russian border.
Ten Mongolian men were hired to put up our ‘ger’, cook our food, catch and saddle our animals and help us across the countryside. Every 30-40kms we would change animals, the dozen or so horses we were riding would be herded back to their family and we would ride on.
Over three weeks, we camped in beautiful places and stayed with nomadic families. At the end of another 100km day in the saddle, we rolled out our little mattresses in their circular tents tied up with horse hair and lined with animal skins and blankets for insulation. Stacked in like sardines, us riders were warm and cosy in homes that are full of love.
The families showed us their best hospitality, blessed us with their home-made vodka and shared their meat and milk products. They entertained us with displays of horse racing, archery and a group of local dancers performed a concert for us is in the desert.
They shared their double clotted cream on bread, rhubarb jam and milk tea. They sacrificed goats for us and we were blessed in their country. Our translator, relayed back to us their words of kindness, “We wish you gold and silver and we hope you live until you are one hundred years old,” followed by the jokes and laughter, they added, “Not even Mongolians are crazy enough to ride four different types of animals across our country!”
We survived saddle sores, sprains, strains, squat toilets and minimal showers for three weeks on the trip of a lifetime.
We have a new appreciation for the stamina and striking beauty of everything Mongolian. The gentleness of their Bactrian two humped camels, their spectacular yaks which were like riding big hairy cows who would shy every time they caught a glimpse of their rider on their back. The horses were fast paced and phenomenal endurance animals, trotting and cantering non-stop for 2.5 to 3 hours at a time.
And finally, the reindeer who would graze the snow as we walked along, listening to the clicking of their tendons making a snaping noise over the sesamoid bones in their feet, which was an amazing adaptation to hear where the rest of their herd are in a blizzard.
For me, The Great Nomad Expedition was a soul-searching experience where music is like medicine. Mongolians sing for the baby camels until they drink from their mothers, they sing to bless the last horse in a race. One of the most beautiful experiences was listening to a dad hum in the middle of the night to put his baby girl back to sleep so she wouldn’t wake us up as we slept on the floor of their tent.
Nearly a whole year later, it really does feel like a fairy tale…and my goodness as a culture, we have so much to learn.
For further information please visit The Great Nomad Expedition at thegreatnomadexpedition.squarespace.com
