Horseback riding part 2

Maybe this time would will be better. Maybe this time, my horse won’t run away and I can have a nice uneventful Mongolian trek.

This, I was praying as our hosts assigned horses one by one to members of our group. The family we were staying with didn’t have 20 horses (for us and our three guides) but they managed to round some up from the neighbors. I raised my hand for the short stocky one and quickly discovered that Mongolian horses were, if anything, consistent.

After a few unproductive tugs on the reins, this horse also lost faith in me and ran away from the group. It was in a gentle trot instead of an angry gallop. Luckily, it pulled to a stop 200 meters away at the clothes line which I assumed was his home base. Juno, who had equestrian experience, rode up to my rescue and informed me that horses tended to head home when they felt uncertain and that (surprise!) I needed to show him who was boss.

He barked directions at me. “Pull the left reign. Hard. Keep your elbows in. Don’t wrap the reins around your fingers.” Both my horse and I cooperated and we rejoined the group as it set out on the trek to the Orkhon waterfall.

I am happy to report that all but two of us stayed on our horses. At one point, Juno’s horse reared up and threw him when it got spooked by an approaching vehicle. Francine’s horse got freaked out by the rattling pills in her purse and started galloping in a mad circle. Luckily, Francine also had experience with horses and according to eyewitness accounts, she hung on for as long as she could like a real rodeo cowgirl.

[This is a photo of Wei crossing the waterfall on his bare feet after a moment alone on the other side on his 36th birthday.]

The ride back was indeed uneventful as I kept my horse on a ”short leash.’ A part of me wanted to let loose and experience the thrill of the runaway gallop one last time but I was not brave enough to dig my heels in and tell my horse “choo.”  

This entry was posted on November 1, 2008 at 8:47 am and is filed under Mongolia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.