Ger Camping

The next morning we had a great tour of the largest Buddhist Monastery by a really cool monk. Then our crew of 7 plus our new guide Elmira headed 1 hour out of town to a Ger Camp - a highlight of Mongolia and one of the trips. A Ger is a big round tent that the nomadic population uses for shelter. They typically move 3-4 times a year and have a variety of livestock including - goats, sheep, horses, cows and yaks. They eat alot of meat in this country.

Once we got out into the countryside we realized Mongolia is the place to be. Forget Russia, forget Europe, forget cities - come hang out in the Mongolian mountains. We could easily spend months hanging out here and living in a ger camp. Rupert vowed he was going to return one day and learn how to train eagles.

After settling down in our spacious ger - it was time to ride some horses. I have wanted to ride horses ever since our camel safari in India. I'm all about alternative forms of transportation. When our horses arrived we discovered horses in Mongolia are half the size of normal horses. No worries, oh except Jen, who hated every minute of horse riding. In fact, we have video footage of her yelling about how much she hated it and how she would never do it again. We rode up to Turtle rock and then over to a nomadic family's camp. There ger had a satellite dish out front and a Mongolian cowboy rounding up horses while chatting on this cell phone.

The day didn't stop there though. Once we got home we hiked to the top of the ridge for a grand view of the land. Pretty amazing. Our guide Elmira (adorable & smiley girl) taught us how to play ankle bones before dinner. I broke out the Slovenian bottle of rum/wine that I had been carrying around for 2 months for the highly anticipated evening of star gazing.

Then, it was up at 4:30am for the sunrise. Here we are.