Day 7 – Drive to Waterfall with no water
We rose early, packed the truck, and couldn't get out of Craptown fast enough. Our destination for the day was the “Waterfall” although, as Doc told us, there was no water – the snows have already melted, I guess.
Still, we would spend two nights along a gorge in the high alpine. The livestock herds were sheep and goats, of course, but replaced cows with Yaks, of whose furry visages Susan never tired.
The route was very beautiful, and took us through an impossible mountain pass, along which we saw several recently deceased livestock. This is a tough time here. While the weather is no longer its coldest, the spring grasses are not yet arrived and so the animals are at their weakest from months of little food. It is sad to think that if the cattle had survived just a few more weeks they would have almost certainly lived until next winter. This is part of why we've been eating so poorly. The locals are still on winter provisions; dried yoghurts, meats, noodled and rice from last harvest season. Nobody would slaughter livestock this early – they wait until it has fattened. We're a little early for the Mongolian tourist season, and so most reports we have read are of travellers who come in summer – when meals consist of meat, meat and more meat.
We all thought that this beautiful, steep and rugged path would lead us to our waterless waterfall. We were at the top of a long and deep valley, a natural destination point. But the road just kept going, until eventually we were following water with the current, rathan than against. It would be several more hours before we arrived.
Along the way we picked a very pretty place to get a flat tire.
When finally we arrived at our home we split into two groups. The dutchmen had a small ger near the family and the paddock – the slovaks, Susan and I had a slightly larger ger just alongside a gorge much like what you would see in Yellowstone, with steep dark rock walls.
We did some hiking. First along the gorge including the overlook of the non-waterfall. The river in the gorge was flowing, only this specific waterfall was dormant. It would have been very dramatic, a river lazing along an almost flat grassland until it suddenly plunged a hundred feet into a gorge that is invisible from more than a few hundred yards away.
We also spent a little bonding time with the lambs and kids among the mixed goat and sheep herd. Not so much on purpose as because the sheep decided I looked like someone they ought to follow.
Docile or not, sheep and goats are pretty creepy looking when you see them up close; with their funky eyes and threatening horns. Eventually my lack of food became evident and they shuttled off just as quick and they had stormed toward me and I hardly had time to scoop up a little lamb for a cuddle. The kids were too spry.
It was then that I realized that the little lamb had a limp. Either this was why I could catch him, or why he let me catch him. In any case, I didn't help, nor would have known what to do, not that I would dare interfere with someone elses livestock. I suppressed the thoughts that reached me now – the little white ball of fuzz which a moment ago was in my hands would almost certainly not live to see another spring. Either he would fail to keep up with the herd, and die young and alone, or he would fatten on the spring and summer grass and be slaughtered for meat come fall. A lame sheep being hopeless in a Mongolian winter.
We also managed to get quite close to the Yak herd (which are often shy) when I said “oh look, a baby yak”. It was at this moment that I realized three things simultaneously (1) the baby yak was tied in place, it's mother and the entire herd were staying together and this is why we could get close (2) the snorting sound was only coming from one Yak, a rather large fellow with horns who was looking right at us (3) he was not tied to anything at all. At this point we made a strategic retreat, using the rocky landscape to put both distance and uneven terrain between us and the “oh so cute” Yaks.
There was another group staying at the same compound, at gers a bit farther away than ours, but an easy walk. They had gathered a bunch of dead wood, and that night we had a campfire at the bottom of the gorge by the river.
It was a cold and dark night, especially in the bottom of the gorge; perfect for campfiring. It was quite late before we even trekked down the canyon walls. Our latitude is about the same as Nova Scotia, the days are long and campfires are really best when its dark. We had some fun conversation with a Kiwi couple, but by and large reenforced our findings that most people aren't that friendly. You meet lots of people on the road, people from everywhere. But the people you actually talk to, the ones that make conversation rather than just saying hello and then keeping to themselves are invariably Americans, Kiwis, Australians or Canadians (with the occasional loquacious Brit). This never really surprised me; I am not, as they say, a people-person. But it drives Susan nuts. It took her two months of sequential international travel and 10,000 miles to come to the conclusion that “people aren't that friendly!” I don't think she realized until now that she was carryng 90% of the load in many of her single-serving friendships.
The next day we got to enjoy a relaxed pace of life, reading, walking and generally not-driving. We also took a short horse ride. These guys were pretty lively.
We were in the alpine regions – colder and wetter than everything we'd seen so far. The grass here was dense already, and there were actual trees. The horses had taken a group out a few hours earlier (the Kiwis and their unfriendly comrades). They were strong already (or still?) being bred for endurance and fattened since the snow had melted. They were no less spirited for their morning ride. If anything, they were more hyper, having lost their patience for pokey, unskilled riders. As a result they didn't really want to go away, and kept turning back towards the stable and paddock.
Susan had a hell of a time getting hers to go straight. Andre and I, for whatever reason, had little trouble (these wouldn't be the first sexist horses I'd met). The guide was constantly doubling back to grab the lead line of Susan's or Natalya's horse and bring them back close to the group. It got so that at the turnaround point he had me trade with Susan. This was an interesting idea because I had been given the largest horse, and Susan the smallest. Once on Susan declared that she had upgraded to “business class” what with the big saddle to go with the big horse. I just did my best to avoid trotting and was thankful that I don't intend to sire children for a few years at least.
At this point in the narrative, any horsemen or horsewomen out there are already laughing, because there is a reason for the expression “like a horse smelling the stable”. As reluctant as they were to go away, the horses were enthusiastic to get home. No dummies these, and well aware that a minute sooner to the stable was a minute less time carrying the damn tourists (who outweigh their usual Mongolian load by quite a bit). Natalya, who had never riden before in her life, didn't know how to reign in her horse, which promptly skipped trotting and went straight into a canter. This of course made the other horses want to catch up.
No problem for Andre, who was enjoying the faster pace and Susan in her upgraded digs, but I have seen dogs larger than the pony I was riding, and we hadn't lengthened the stirrips when we traded. At a trot I could hold myself up out of the saddle and so avoid the metal ring at the front which is ostensibly used to secure ropes but seems mainly to ensure the compact and efficient genetic heritage of ethnic Mongolians by irrevocably sterilizing oversized horsemen in the most painful way imaginable. The real trouble was when my horse wanted to canter. The damn thing is so small, and my feet so large that at full stride I would basically kick the horse in the shins with each step (really, he was kicking himself, but the argument is academic when you are worried about permanently injuring someone else's livelihood while many many miles from any traditional legal arbitration). Rather than find myself indentured to a nomad for a term equivalent to the value of one horse, I kept reigning him in. Some horses just need to be dominated, and eventually he got the idea of “who is in charge”. This was about the same time that a really beautiful eagle was swooping overhead.
Big eagles are everywhere here, and it is wonderful to see them hover overhead. Every once in a while you'll see them with some part of their catch hanging out of their beaks. But I had yet to see one strike. This one was hovering quite low, and immediately overhead in a tight circle, so I was getting a good look and hoping for some drama.
Drama, of course, came in the form of my horse deciding on this moment to break his stride and instead of cantering, just dancing in circles. We did make it all back in one piece, and without anyone falling off, though I came damn close to watching the eagle from flat on my back. I think I kind of impressed my guide when I managed to NOT fall off, but his smile might just as well been mirth at my expense.
In the morning we were off early for Tsetserleg and the first western food in 9 days, from a cafe run by British expat missionaries.
