So my wife watched “The Eagle Huntress,” a documentary about a young Mongolian girl who became the first girl to hunt and compete using golden eagles, against all odds and cultural boundaries. A true “Female Empowerment” movie. Not that my wife needs more empowerment. Any more empowerment and she could form her own estrogen-infused superhero conclave. So that spring-boarded us into plans for Mongolia. I called my best friend Jon and asked if he wanted to go to one of the least populated and least visited places in the world.
“The Detroit Lions Stadium?”
“No!” I said, “But good point. Mongolia!”
“Oh... Okay, I’m in!” Everyone needs one friend that will grab a duffle bag and pocket knife and leave on the spot when asked to adventure. And just like that he and his wife Mary (also a member of the Estrogen-Superhero Conclave and the Tequila Sisterhood of Occasional Regrets) were off to the Gobi desert with hopes to end up at the Annual Golden Eagle Festival.
The festival, held on the beginning of October was going to be the highlight, where local hunters would compete with their eagles in several events, during which photographers would gasp repeatedly while their camera trigger fingers twitched uncontrollably.
We contacted Nomadic Voyages (www.NomadicVoyages.com) and arranged for a private tour with Sara, who had lots of personal contacts throughout the entire country.
Great choice.
The flight to Ulaanbaatar (locals call it UB) took us 13 hours, so we arrived thick and foggy as the haze from the the coal burning power plants . We spent the night there to recover from the flight (MSP>ICN>ULN, thank god for 3 seats and an ambien). The next morning we got out of the big city and drove off to the plains of Gobi desert to stay in a traditional ger (basically a yurt on steroids).
Mongolia is where you go to really learn the meaning of “vast.” It was just hard to comprehend how big everything was. Looking out endless plains we could sometimes see tiny dark spots that after an hour of driving turned out to be enormous herds of goats, sheep or horses. 4 hours turned in to 6 without any perceptible change in the landscape and time was measured in our bladder size rather than hours. We arrived at the Gobi Nomad Lodge, a collection of gers in the south Gobi.
We had asked for the Super Deluxe ger that had its own private bathroom that happened to have....L’Occitane bath products. Happy wives. It also had ice cold Chenggis Beer. Happy husbands. There were plenty of regular traditional gers as well, in which you could do the traditional walk through the traditional frigid night to the bathroom, but bucking tradition in this instance seemed like a good decision. This was reinforced by the other camp members who walked by, stopped, asked to come inside and actually take pictures of our ger.
“You guys can all feel free to come over and use his bathroom anytime!” Jon said cheerfully.
On the first day we went to the Yol Valley, or “The Gorge of Very Bouncy Horses”.
We bounced through a beautiful rocky gorge on the small Mongolian horses. We learned from our guide that yelling “Choo!! Choo!!” would encourage our horses to go faster. Though my horse and Sara’s horse didn’t speak Choo, the rest of the horses took off, with Cat’s metal stirrups audibly banging against her shins. Bruises blossomed and faded throughout the next several days, but the smiles of galloping through the gorge would remain.
The next tour was the huge towering dunes of Khongoryn Els, the “Singing Sands” named after the sound of the wind whipped dunes. There was a group of camels there being tended by a gentleman who we suspected was enjoying a lot of Mongolian Vodka, made from fermented yogurts. He readily (if somewhat unsteadily) agreed to let us ride camels across the desert, all of us again yelling “Choo, Choo!” like a bunch of kindergartners pretending to be trains.
As we finished our ride we learned a critical lesson about camels. Camels tolerate a lot. Being overloaded, going long stretches without water, and even being controlled by yanking a rope tied to a stake through their nose. But dismount on the wrong side (their right side)...camel pandemonium. Mary discovered this while dismounting on the right to be away from the bitey part of the camel that was twisting around to her left. The camel, shocked and appalled that she violated the first and only rule of camel etiquette jumped up and started to buck. The other camels, in solidarity, also started to jump and buck. It was like Camel popcorn. I watched as Mary executed an unusual head-first camel-bucking dismount, with a half twist flourish to end up flat on her back. Myself I would have done it differently, but she is a competitive horsewoman so what do I know. The camels took off at a gallop hotly pursued by the camel herder, leaving us and the downed Mary in silence (except for Jon saying softly “Bucked off a camel. In the middle of f-ing Mongolia).
That night, sore but happy, we stayed in a more traditional ger (no bathroom or fancy french accoutrements) near the dunes and had a couple of new flavors introduced to us:
Fermented Mare’s milk “Airag”- sour and tangy, with a delicious aftertaste of goat cheese.
Mongolian Vodka “Arkhi” - distilled from fermented yogurt. Tastes like alcohol aged in a cheddar barrel
Camel cheese “Qurut” or “Aaruul” - pungent with an aftertaste of the toothpaste-you-immediately-use to get rid of the flavor.
Note: you may see a guest dip their right ring finger in the vodka and flick it in different direction above their head in an offer to good spirits. I thought they were flicking it at Jon.
The next morning we took a side trip to the beautiful red Flaming cliffs which was very worthwhile and made famous by the first dinosaur eggs and embryos ever found. This gave rise to the field of paleoembryology which is worth 70 points if you use it in scrabble (by cheating).
The drive back brings us to the subject of Mongolian bathroom breaks. Roadside “bathrooms” are available from time to time, but unlike our American sitting-down outhouses, the Mongolian technique is “Hover and Dodge”. The holes in the floor are quite small, so the dodging part is optional if you have sniper-like accuracy of your exit points. And pray that you don’t have diarrhea. At one point I heard Mary, waiting for Cat to finish in the outhouse yelling at her “Choo, Choo!”
Done with the Gobi, it was time to fly to Outer Mongolia near the Kazakhstan border to the festival.
We got off the plane to a sign that said “Welcome to Uglii”
I looked at the sign, pointed to Jon, and nodded.
Our welcome dinner was with one of the founding fathers of Mongolian democracy, Alip Mukhametkhali. Sara was a friend of the family and it was yet another time we got to experience the overwhelming hospitality that is a trademark of the Mongolian people. It makes our “Minnesota Nice” seem kind of pathetic by comparison. This was the “five fingers feast” where this very kind grandfatherly patriarch would refill our plates every few bites until our stomachs were visibly bloated. At least Cat’s was. Boiled mutton with onion, offal (if you don’t know it, don’t look it up), a delicious vegetable wrapped in a dough, and many unrecognized dishes. Then the dessert trays came out. Good lord.
The dusty town of Uglii is the jumping off point for the festival several miles away. Eagle hunters have ridden their horses for days to get here, and as we drove through town we could actually see them. “Stop the car!!!” Cat said, “I’VE GOTTA GET A PICTURE!”
We pulled right up alongside a group of eagle hunters, in full Mongolian furs who flourished their eagles and shouted to Cat in Kazak “Put on your Facebook!”
Cat turned to me, tears literally streaming down her face, “I’m so happy...”
We arrived at the view of the festival to an amazing site. Camels wandering around, small children with falcons perched on their arms, and towering men looking down from their horses like the full descendants of Chinggis Khan (It is Chinggis, not Genghis Khan by the people who actually know). Eagles calling, camels crying, and several dozen languages being spoken all around, it was more like the cantina scene of Star Wars than anything else.
The first thing we did was run around like crazy snapping pictures. Cat had several selfie-associated injuries, smile cramps, thumb strains, the experience was taking its toll on us all.
We all were concluding “You can’t take a bad picture of someone with a golden eagle on his arm”. The competitors did not mind, tipping for selfies was appreciated but not demanded.
They announced the start with much fanfare (We think. The announcer could’ve been talking about anything, but it sounded very enthusiastic.)
The first event started when the hunter, on horseback, would ride out onto the field and call his eagle. Way up on a nearby mountain his partner would unhood his eagle and wait. The eagle would respond when she (they are all females) recognized the hunter’s call and take off to land hopefully on the hunters arm. Points are awarded for time, distance away from the mountain and I think for looking like a general badass.
Over the course of two days we watched the eagles compete by launching from the mountain to catch a rabbit pelt pulled by the horse and hunter, archery competitions, riders picking up small objects from a galloping horse, and of course, the ol’ Whip Your Boyfriend While Galloping on Your Horses competition. Yep. At a full gallop the woman in full traditional costume whips the man as he tries to ride away. With a Kazakh accent we heard the announcer “That’s a very nice whipping of the back of the man while running!!!”
Cat looked at Jon and Mary and shrugged “Hey. Typical Tuesday night at our house.”
Points are given for the number of whips, and I’ll bet bonus points if she gets a marriage proposal during the ride. The beating of the man made me appreciate the honest directness of the Mongolian culture versus my wife’s.
After the competition we ended our trip visiting one of the champion hunters, Serik Jenisbek, and his family. They welcomed us warmly into their ger, fed us a delicious goat stew and salted tea warmed by the stove heated with dried cow patties. We asked a ton of questions about everything. How do you train the eagles? Is it hard to let them go free after you have had them for years? Is there a Mongolian Tinder app? (This question is particularly relevant as he is widely known as “The Hot Guy of Eagle Hunting".
After he answered all of our questions he led us outside.
One by one he showed us how to mount up and hold the eagle. Sitting up there I could pretend for a moment I was a badass, until I looked down at the giant muscular regal Mongolian eagle hunter standing beside me. Yep, I’m not even close.
