Mongolia, Hustai National Park: Happy Birthday Dan

The day we spent at Hustai National Park was a very special day for one of us during our year-long trip... it was Dan's 30th birthday! We have written about the morning of his birthday, when we woke up inside a nomadic family's ger tent inside Gun Galuut Nature Reserve (see previous journal entry), and we also wrote about the birthday dinner we had on the evening of his birthday (look a few journal entries back for the Ulaanbaatar one), but now you get to read about what we did during the afternoon.

We left Gun Galuut Nature Reserve early in the morning, after eating breakfast inside our ger tent at the nomadic family's camp where we stayed the previous evening. To get to Hustai National Park, our driver, Rentsen, drove us two hours west to Ulaanbaatar and then another hour west to get to our intended destination. Chaagii, our guide, kept us entertained during this time by filling our minds

Something that very few people in the world have done - spotting some of the only true wild horses left in the world

with interesting facts about Mongolia, and the journey went by very quickly.

In Ulaanbaatar, we had a quick rest stop while Rentsen filled his car with petrol. Kyle treated Dan to some tiny Twix candy bars that were similar to Cadbury Fingers chocolate bars in the UK. Chaagii and Rentsen joined in and ate some of the bars, too, and really liked them, even though the chocolate was extremely melted and gooey from the heat.

Upon arrival at Hustai National Park, we were taken to a ger camp located at the park headquarters. Chaagii led us to one of the gers and we thought we were going to be able to rest there for an hour before having lunch and starting our tour of the park. Once we were inside the ger, we realised how different that ger camp was from the others we had already visited. For starters, the ger we entered had working electricity! This was very unusual because the areas that we visited in Mongolia used solar power, if they had any power at all, and conserved their energy as much as possible; this meant there were no power outlets in the other gers we saw.

Once we put all of our bags onto the beds inside the ger, we got the laptop out and plugged it in so we could charge the battery, which had died from using it at the nomadic family's ger camp. As soon as the blue light was on, indicating that charging was in progress, Chaagii knocked on the door of our ger and told us that we weren't staying overnight at the national park, and that we had to remove our belongings from the ger, in case someone else was due to check in that afternoon. Our tour in Mongolia was Chaagii's first tour working for the Selena Travel agency and she got a few things wrong, but her kindness and helpfulness more than made up for her little blunders.

We didn't think that anyone was going to be checking into the ger that day because there were hardly any people around; the tourist season in Mongolia had only really just started up when we were there. However, we acquiesced and removed our belongings, putting them back into the boot (that's the same as a trunk for the Americans reading this) of Rentsen's car. We were sad not to be able to relax or even take a nap inside the ger, as it was more luxurious and comfortable than the other gers we stayed in during our trip. Having said that, the ones we previously stayed in were still really nice.

Hustai National Park was quite large but we were only scheduled to see part of it during the afternoon that we were there. The reason the park was famous in Mongolia was primarily due to the successful reintroduction of Przewalski (called "takhi" in Mongolian) horses into the wild there. The Przewalski horse was the only true wild horse in existence and we were due to go on a drive through the park to see if we could spot any of the shy, rare animals.

For those of you who would like to contradict that last statement above by telling us that mustangs are wild horses in the United States, we will correct you now by explaining that mustangs are domesticated horses that were let loose in the wild, and have been surviving successfully since that point. Attempts to domesticate the Przewalski horse have been made in the past, but they have all failed.

Before setting out to look for wild horses, we ate lunch at the ger camp. There was a large restaurant next to the park headquarters, which served a buffet with many dishes. A few other tour groups were eating lunch with us; most of the people were from the United States or Australia. There were four salads available to choose from for our "first course"; we each ate a small portion of each salad before returning to the buffet for a second serving of our favourite ones.

For the "second course", we ate baked chicken legs, chips (french fries - remember from our previous journal entries?) and gruel (the soup this time was a yummy celery and onion soup). Dessert was a martini glass filled with much too sweet cherry juice and maraschino cherries, and was the only thing we didn't enjoy eating during lunch; it was also disappointing to have the dessert again as we had eaten it on the previous day. To accompany lunch, we had a really delicious tea from Sri Lanka that was quite common and popular to drink in Mongolia during mealtimes.

We were full from lunch when we hopped into Rentsen's car. While our food was digesting, he drove us further inside the national park to an area where the wild horses should have been grazing. The animals were very shy creatures and we overheard one of the tour groups at lunch say that they had not seen any horses that morning, and that the horses could normally only be spotted in the early mornings or evenings. We were hoping that luck would be with us and we became quite anxious during the 20 minute drive in the park.

The dirt road through Hustai National Park led us through grassy valleys situated between small mountains on either side. At the start of the journey, we spotted an adorable Mongolian marmot sitting on his hind legs, staring us down as we passed slowly by in the car. We tried to get a photo of the creature before he ran back into his little hole, but the camera took ages to switch on and the auto light adjustment feature meant that the flash was delayed. Therefore, we only snapped a photo of the animal when it was running away, but we hope you like it anyway, when you look at the photo album for this journal entry.

After spotting the marmot, we started seeing taller mountains on either side of us, and Rentsen and Chaagii started to glance frantically from side to side, looking out for the horses as we continued along the road. After 20 minutes of not seeing anything, we were getting a little worried that we may not accomplish a spotting, but both Chaagii and Rentsen were still confident.

Not much later, Rentsen pulled the car over next to a large mountain with many trees along its peak. We thought that he may have spotted something, but for several minutes there was nothing at all to see. It didn't help that neither of us knew how large the animals would appear on the mountain in front of us; we soon found out that the mountain was much larger and further away than we initially perceived, and that the creatures would only appear as little specks to the naked eye.

We walked along the valley for a few minutes and Rentsen met us further down the road. After he started driving down the road, Dan soon saw a tiny horse-shaped figure on the mountain ridge in front of us. Rentsen pulled over immediately and we all got out to take a better look. Upon closer inspection, we confirmed that there were three Przewalski horses grazing on the top of the mountain. We were fortunate when another group of tourists pulled over at the same spot and their guide whipped out a pair of fancy binoculars, which gave us the opportunity to see the animals up close.

After watching the horses for a while, they trotted over the mountain ridge, so we got back into the car and were driven a bit further down the road to take another look at the animals before leaving the national park. When we got out of the car that time, we spotted an additional two horses on the next mountain ridge, as well as the three we had initially spotted. All of the horses looked completely alike, with light brown and beige hair and similar features all over, including short manes and stunted legs; they looked like large ponies.

When we arrived back at the ger camp located next to the park headquarters, we went into a large, round building to watch a video that chronicled the story of the horses and how Hustai has reintroduced them into the wild after collecting the remaining animals from locations in Europe where they were being held. It was very difficult to ensure that the few remaining horses didn't inbreed, in order to preserve the species' genes.

During the film, Kyle and Chaagii decided to draw their versions of the Przewalski horses on a whiteboard that was positioned at the front of the room. By the time they had finished drawing the picture, it was quite funny, but also a little bit rude in parts (we won't mention which parts were rude). The film ended and we anticipated the return of the woman who ran the video for us. Kyle quickly wiped off his section of the board and the pictures he drew, but when Chaagii tried to do the same, her mouth dropped because she had used a permanent marker! She and Kyle couldn't rub the ink off where her photo had been drawn so she turned the whiteboard over to the reverse side and we all made a quick exit out of the building. Oops!

Back in the car, we were heading out of Hustai National Park, but we had one more stop before returning to Ulaanbaatar, the Moltsog Els sand dunes. Rentsen drove out quite far on the dunes as much of the area was firm enough to support his car; it still made us nervous, as we didn't want to get stuck in the sand and have to attempt to push the car out if it did get stuck.

On the sand dunes, we saw some strange insects and a few cows, one of which we ran up to and pretty much scared the crap out of it. Seriously, it had a major poo right when we ran quickly up to it, to look closely at the animal before it ran off. We walked into the dunes for a few minutes and we walked up to one of the highest points so we could take a nice photo of the area. After spending about 20 minutes on the dunes, we headed back to the car.

The car journey back to Ulaanbaatar took an hour. During this time, we reflected on our brief visit to Hustai National Park and how we were able to achieve something that very few people in the world have done, which was to spot some of the only true wild horses left in the world. We also thought about our trip over the past 5-1/2 months and all of the places that we have visited, and we also thought about what the rest of our year travelling will have in store for us. Add all of this to the fact that it was Dan's 30th birthday and we will remember this day of our trip for a long time.