gee-up horsie tschu tschu
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009by Rach-the-horsewoman (ha ha)
Orkhon, Mongolia
Day One
Approaching the horses, there is a mixture of excitement and tentativeness. City-slicker tendencies abound. How do you get on that thing anyway? What if I’m too heavy for it? What if it takes off? How will it know I’m coming up? What was that? Oh, always mount from the left side, sorry we didn’t know. And the kids need warning and reminding DON’T STAND BEHIND THE HORSE.
Everyone gets a turn at ambling round the yard once, even me. The children don’t realise I’ve been dreading this long-awaited-by-them day for the whole trip. They don’t realise I’ve only been on a horse once, as an eleven-year-old, and got hurled off sideways before even starting, resulting in a reluctance to remount, a reluctance which was indulged by the school teacher, who obviously was more concerned about getting the group underway than helping the scaredy-cat overcome any fear….and so the low grade apprehension has followed me for almost three decades. With a dozen pairs of eyes eagerly watching, certain my enthusiasm will soon match theirs, what alternative is there? And before you know it, you are actually enjoying it, and even urging the very relaxed snail’s pace horse up the manure hill and down the other side. You return victorious and can honestly agree it was as good as promised!
Day Two
Saddles and stirrups make mounting easier. Not that we know to only put toes in the stirrups. But with some sign language and Mongolian grunting we work it out! It’s surprising how quickly everyone feels comfortable. Even ER2 will walk around on her own and asks to go over the dung heap. The three eldest get trotting and one of them helps round up the goats – on horseback – at day’s end.
Day Three
A new horse is brought out. This one, Tractor, can be prodded into bone-jarring up and down jostling action. Everyone trots. Jboy13 urges him into a gallop, as does Kgirl10, even if unknowingly. We’re not exactly pros, but apparently our competence is sufficient to consider taking a ride across the steppe in a day or so. When we’d arrived this was a no-no, being non-riders-n-all. Excitement mounts.
Kgirl10 declares she’s found her next favourite thing in life. Even more than dolls or cooking. This is quite some statement!
Day Four
Repeat day three.
Day Five
Introduced to Blackie, the horse who takes no effort at all to get moving.
Day Six: The Real Ride
The anticipated day dawned clear blue. We would be allowed to take three saddled horses and another pulling a wagon out of the gates – under escort, of course; two experienced Mongolian riders and more dogs than you could shake a stick at.
Out of the gate, up the street, beside the river, under the bridge (duck duck rubber duck duck), across the shimmering green, up a small sand hill, along the road (don’t think tarmac or asphalt or concrete or even cobbled – it’s just a sandy stony rutted dirt track, but it IS the road). Not that we were bound by it. We could ride anywhere – for miles and miles was tussocky grass, mostly brown but just starting to show signs of greening. It was dotted with an occasional ger compound, a herd of goats and sheep, a handful of trees. And that was it. Just grass and mountains and us.
Oh, and some old dead-but-still-prickly gorse. How do we know about that? Because Lboy8 landed in it, face first. I avoided the prickles, but got dragged along the rocky ground for a few bumps before managing to disentangle foot from stirrup.
We had stopped to do a child-swap on horses, and instead of a little girl in the saddle in front of me, Lboy8 was hoisted up behind. Immediately the horse got jittery. Ignoring that, and in boyish eagerness, the new passenger requested that we go fast to be at the front. In responsible motherly fashion (or because I was feeling distinctly nervous at Tractor’s twitching), I suggested a few minutes of gentle trotting to get a feel for my new swaying passenger. At precisely that moment Tractor spun around and bolted. And we fell off. Simple as that. Lboy8 retreated to the wagon and I got back on. That’s what you’re supposed to do, isn’t it?
Apart from one horse stumbling, Grandpa being thrown leaping nimbly from the cart at a particularly bumpy section, and some raw chaffed legs where the stirrup straps rubbed, the rest of The Ride proceeded without incident.
We made it to the top of one of the smaller-but-made-us-puff hills in the far distance and were rewarded with sweeping vistas in all directions.
Take a look with us at the Back of Beyond:
rayres