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- May 1, 2009: Comfort zone experiment 1: Hooping
- February 7, 2009: Getting diagnosed with the flu
- January 26, 2009: How to be portable
- January 6, 2009: Words I learned in Mongolian
- January 6, 2009: Being one with the land
- December 30, 2008: Eating Goat
- December 29, 2008: the Mongol Els
- November 1, 2008: Horseback riding part 2
- October 29, 2008: I Heart Shaggy Yaks
- October 28, 2008: Mysterious remains
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I Heart Shaggy Yaks
Conversation in the van:
Karin: Cassandra! Look out the window! I just saw a giant furry sheep with a yak. They were face to face. Do you think they were communicating?
Cassandra: That wasn’t a giant sheep. That was a baby yak.
Yaks were the most exotic creatures I had ever seen. Something about the unabashed hairiness and the slopes of their backs (not unlike the hills of San Francisco). They resembled cows but had horns like bulls. The Mongolian attitude towards animals was a constant source of fascination for me. Where I come from, if you don’t lock up your animals, someone would steal them, or they would run away and hurt people. The yaks were so mellow, giving the impression that they had no interest in charging at people, not even at foreigners with cameras.
Here’s a funny story: Before bedtime one night, Francine and I were making our way into a valley of darkness (seriously, we wanted to pee away from the lights of the gers and vans). I stood a few feet in front of her to guard her modesty but could not protect her from a voyeur beside her. Just as she was pulling her pants down to squat in the pitch darkness, we heard a snort. It was a yak letting her know that she was not alone. Or maybe the yak was trying to tell her “don’t back up any further, sister.” Either way, we were relieved that the reaction was so gentle coming from a wild animal unaccustomed to strange foreign girl behavior.
From this photo, you can tell that baby yaks don’t look much like giant sheep but actually more like fuzzy donkeys. (My frame of reference is very limited.) I took many photos of a pair of baby yaks before one of them got freaked out by my proximity and moved to hide behind its mother. The other one tried to be brave and by not letting me interrupt his sunbathing. I could tell that from time to time, he looked over to his mother for reassurance and I could tell that she was keeping her eye on me.