The Nomads in the Wild-flowers

I could feel the muscles of the little chestnut horse beneath me bunch up and spring forwards. Cold air whipped my face. Ground squirrels scattered as hooves pounded the grassy steppes. Fifteen riders galloped through open fields and past alpine forests where wolves hid and watched. Across the steppes a herd of wild horses bolted and we laughed at the sheer joy of seeing horses run. We slowed, the riders panting harder than the horses. Fog puffed from their nostrils as they jigged their feet and tossed their heads. We were somewhere south of the Russian border, deep in the wilderness of Mongolia. I marvelled at the scenery and asked myself: How did I get here? Was it because of my wanderlust daydreams or because of the moment I excitedly booked tickets?
We were so remote, yet never alone. As we rode we spotted many white Gers dotting the countryside that indicated family, friends and community. The local nomads would arrive on horseback and join us as we stopped beside snow-melt streams for lunch. They would smile toothily and chatter to our translator and horse wranglers, nibbling on the chocolate brought in our saddlebags. When they smiled, wrinkles creased their leathery faces like rays of sun breaking over a horizon. I asked our travel guide if the locals were friends of our wranglers, who were from the region.
“It’s hard to tell, really,” John says. “They all treat each other the same whether they’ve ever met or not.” Mongolians hospitable attitudes are essential for survival- it is completely normal for them to supply any visitors’ food and drink, and even a place to stay if needed. This lifestyle is born from the necessity of people traversing enormous distances across isolated landscapes.
Our increasingly globalised world seems one-sided: travel documentaries and absent-minded Google searches inspired me to come to Mongolia, where these people still travel by horseback to cover distances usually crossed by vehicle, as they have for thousands of years. They pack up their entire home into the back of a truck, or onto camels and yaks. Travelling here from Australia took trips by car, plane, and hours in a Russian van called a Furgon.
These people move from the valley to the hills when the seasons change and the snow sets in. I wondered if their simple, nomadic life was a better one. I may live in the same house all year around, but when I wander, I wander far. And here I am, galloping through fields of flowers and hearing the wind in my ears.