On and on my mind wandered until I eventually passed out from sheer exhaustion. I always found it both unnerving and fascinating that I could never remember the very last thought I had before falling asleep. At what moment did sleep happen? Did those thoughts pass through into my sleep and become dreams? Or was I awake the whole time in a different universe? This was not the kind of thing this trip was likely to teach me, but I sure was learning about a whole lot of other mind-boggling stuff.
Chapter 31: Where Nomads Roam
Bree spent the next few days walking with a slightly different tilt than usual and just a bit too much “wiggle wobble” for my liking. That hair flinging has got to stop, and that eye twitching, too! Do all cultures find winking attractive? While we played cards in the evenings, Bree would often take herself off to a corner and pluck her eyebrows, despite the dim lighting. I wonder why? I’d think sarcastically. Undoubtedly, she was as frustrated by my scowls as I was by her not-so-subtle flirting.
We hadn`t seen Baagii much the first day, which was fine by me. We’d decided on the second day that it was only fair for us to pay half the price for Baagii’s service so we could more legitimately pick his brain, much to Ammon’s satisfaction. This also meant that he would travel with us during the day, because our van was bigger. This put him and Bree in even closer proximity, and drove me even crazier. Bree was thrilled with the new arrangement, and I could tell she was expecting more than just information for the extra cost. There was no escaping the two of them as they were tossed around in the back giggling. At the moment, she was hanging from her waist out the window, licking the air with uncontrolled excitement like a full-cheeked, howling dog.
“Are you SURE they didn’t film Lord of the Rings here?!” she shouted up to Ammon, momentarily pulling her head in from the window.
“Definitely not! It was New Zealand,” he responded immediately. He would know, too, as it is his favourite movie of all time. Maybe not, I thought, but as our vehicles chased each other up and over the hillsides in a kind of dance, I did feel a bit like I was in an adventure film. The military jeep, camouflaged and worn, raced alongside us in the meadows, stirring up dust in a long, trailing parachute.
Mother Nature created a cloud masterpiece in the sky, the biggest easel known to man; God used whipped cream instead of paint to show just how happy He was. Despite the burn I could see developing from suspending my arms through the open window to take photos, I could not put our little Nikon down. There was nothing to mar the landscape in all directions and for miles after that, and then a herd of wild horses would emerge, larger than I ever dreamt was possible. They roamed free and had all the space horses were born to explore. This land was truly a horse’s paradise.
“Holy COW! I can’t believe how many there are!” Bree shouted from the back.
“This isn’t cows. That is horse!” Baagii corrected her exclamation.
“Yah, I know, but it really does look like cattle,” she shouted again over the many other competing sounds. It was always loud, with the rustling wind fighting the noise of the engine for supremacy.
“They’re beautiful,” Mom said. Lavish and vibrant, they ran in herds across the grassland or clustered by small lakes, completely free of human interference. The colts played carelessly but always stayed close to their mothers for protection. When they ran, their long manes whipped in the wind and their elegant tails flapped in their wake. It was hard to tell if they were running with or from us.
The natural beauty of Mongolia acted like a super drug to calm my typical string of worries. What if we break down way out here? My gosh, we’d never be saved. How on earth would we find a gas station? The sun was suspended before me like a hypnotist’s pendant, and my concerns faded away, replaced by pure awe. With the wild horses galloping in the distance, it was easy to fantasize that, in the case of a breakdown; I could just leap onto one of those elegant beasts and ride to safety.
I closed my eyes and imagined I was flying atop a horse that had the wings of an angel, as white and delicate as powdered sugar. We’d chase our shadow over the rolling hills and across this vast land. The horse’s giant, outstretched wings would glisten at my sides like the trickling streams we’d soar over.
“How many must there be?” Bree’s voice brought me back to the present reality.
“In that herd? At least a hundred,” Mom said.
“Horses are the pride of Mongolia, and apparently there are a hundred different ways to say horse in Mongolian,” Ammon said, pleased to have Baagii nearby to confirm his statement.
“Yes! Every man has ten horses. They are one with their horses. Some have three hundred,” Baagii added. Mongolia is one of the last places on earth where wild horses exist, but I knew the horses we saw were not truly wild. Though Mongolian herds roamed freely without saddles and grazed without fences, I knew that somehow, somewhere out there, someone owned them.
Even the horses seemed to know they were special and loved. Occasionally, a single cement trough used by shepherds tending to their thirsty flocks appeared in the midst of the expansive landscape. At one watering hole where we’d stopped to help haul water using the rope and bucket attached to the heavy cement lid covering the fresh, cool water source, I witnessed a telling demonstration that horses were at the top of the livestock pyramid. Hundreds of sheep and goats were crowded around this trough before the water was even poured, the goats ramming each other with their horns as they fought for position. As if it were simply the natural order of things here, all the animals, even the larger camels, gave up their places to the half-a-dozen short, husky horses when they came butting in late for their drink. The horses just appeared to control the mob.
Baagii then told us a long-held Mongolian saying: “The more livestock, the better your lifestyle will be.” I can’t imagine how that’s possible. Ten goats won’t give you a flushing toilet or make electricity suddenly appear. But at least they can be proud of their goats, so I guess they’re not that different from me, I thought as I quickly related travelers’ competitions and my pride in the worn appearance of my big backpack to the pride they took from owning livestock. Except, at least they have a home. I don’t even have one of those funny little tents. They’ve got all that PLUS a really big backyard! I knew we had some money in the bank, but in our world, that was worth nothing without a house and a car. How will we ever fit back into society? We certainly didn’t have enough to buy a house, so now I’m the equivalent of a nomadic Mongolian, but with no horse. I felt I could relate to how they moved from place to place. “Home is where the backpack is,” was Mom’s saying, or maybe it was Ammon’s. If only these friendly folk knew that when I spent a night in their home, it was literally my home, too.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As we stopped beside a white ger, the guard dogs rushed over to inspect us. Baagii jumped out of the van shouting “nokhoi khor! nokhoi khor!” This common greeting translates roughly to “hold the dogs.”
“Directions again?” I half asked, half joked as we made another of many quick stops to make sure we were still generally headed in the right direction.
“Could you blame them?” Mom said, watching from the back window as Baagii was greeted warmly.
When he returned, Baagii asked, “Do you want to try our local drink airag?” holding out a plastic bottle full of white liquid. “It’s mare’s milk.”
“Horse milk?” Mom asked curiously.
“Yah, I do! That sounds cool!” Ammon was always happy to sample new and bizarre foods.
“Did it come straight out of that horse!?” Bree asked pointing to a beige mare nearby with a suckling colt. I couldn’t tell if she asked in an intrigued or disgusted way. Baagii only smiled and laughed. “OOOooh, that is sour! Why is it so sour?!” Bree cringed after pressing the bottle to her lips.
“It’s fermented,” Mom said, her mouth twisting, too, when she tried it.
“What does that mean?” Bree said, tilting her head back for a second try.
; “It’s like wine. As it rots, it changes to alcohol,” she explained. Bree grasped her throat as if she’d been poisoned when she heard that. I giggled as I watched her almost spit it out onto the seat in front of her and down Bimba’s neck. Bree had drunk endless amounts of the green tea we were served in China before we told her it was caffeinated. She had choked then, too, and sworn not to drink any more of the evil beverage. Of course, with the teapot going around our table at every meal, her resolve didn’t last long, and she often lamented her state, “See? It’s too late for me now. I’m doomed. I don’t want to drink it, but I do anyway. I’m addicted to the caffeine, and I hate myself for it!”
We got the same effect when we told her she was drinking alcohol. You’d think we’d killed her. Her reaction was a bit extreme, perhaps, but what isn’t extreme about that girl? “I can’t believe you drink that stuff?!” she said to Baagii disgustedly. He made no response other than to pass it sheepishly to Bimba, who took it happily.
Ammon and Mom looked at each other as safety issues occurred to them both simultaneously. In the end, they simply accepted it with a shrug. Drunk driving couldn’t be much of a problem when there was nothing to hit as far as the eye could see. I thought it should be fine as long as we didn’t meet another road block or stop sign. Thinking back on it, though, those cops had all looked a bit happy themselves. I wonder if they had had their own big, white bottle. Then again, I wondered if drunk driving even mattered here.
The bumps and the rigid earth didn’t prevent Bimba, drunk or not, from flooring the gas pedal to hit our maximum speed of 50km/h (31mph). I could tell he loved his work from the ever-increasing size of his grin as we hit bumps harder and harder. Bimba also played chicken with anyone who passed us on the “road.” The closer he came to causing a collision, the funnier he seemed to find it. In one such incident, a motorcycle took him up on the challenge and drove straight at us, but Bimba wasn’t about to lose that game. Thankfully, the motorcycle swerved at the last second. He and his rider were thrown from their seats and landed on their butts in the dust storm that trailed in our wake. As I looked out the rear window, I could just barely make out the passenger sitting stunned in the sand while his friend smacked the ground, unable to contain his laughter.
The daily rides were long, averaging about ten hours. As soon as we quit for the night, the two drivers would jump under their trucks and start the necessary hours of repairs. I was sure most of the damage could’ve been prevented if they hadn’t driven like maniacs all day long. We didn’t see them often in the evenings; for all we knew, they slept underneath their trucks.
Our ride became progressively bumpier forcing us to hold onto our seats and flip-flops. The heat and constant shaking made Baagii’s small barrel of rancid horse milk, which was stashed in the back, hiss threateningly. The full bottle of the fizzy drink he held in his hands was also on the verge of exploding. Sensing a prime opportunity, Bimba purposely hit a large bump and in the blink of an eye, Baagii was wearing what he was drinking. Bimba roared with delight at his success.
Just then Bree shouted “What’s that up ahead!?” and poor soggy Baagii was old news.
“It’s an ovoo,” he answered, looking like a drowned cat in his wet seat.
“A what now!?” I asked. Because there was nothing around but the grassy rolling hills, we could see it from a long way off. Our very first ovoo was a rock cairn with threads of silky blue scarves tethered to a stick protruding upwards from the centre.
“You must always go around clockwise three times,” Baagii explained as he jumped out, shaking his wet hands to dry them. “For a safe journey. It’s like a shrine and it is symbolic of the open sky and Tengger, the sky spirit Genghis Khan prayed to before he came to power. Also makes good reference point,” he added, admitting that he knew this ovoo.
Having been crammed for so many hours in the car, Bree got excited and circled it a few times like some kind of maniac. Then she cried, “OH NO! Baagii, I lost count, I think I went four times!”
“Then you cannot stop. You have to go twice more. You can do six if you want. As long as it is by threes, it is okay.”
“Geez, Bree. You would be the one to curse our trip!” Ammon said.
Once Baagii’d told us more about their history, we realized this was a lot more than just a big pile of rocks. An ovoo is a traditional shaman pile started because someone is ill or wants a wish granted. Passers-by continue to pile things on top, generally rocks or wood, and over time, it becomes a massive mound. It felt as if the land had a magnetic force that collects and hoards bits and pieces in one place, the way autumn winds gather piles of crunchy leaves on a doorstep.
“People leave offerings here, anything from money to milk to sweets. Vodka is sacred,” Baagii went on to explain.
“I could imagine that vodka must seem holy after all that horse milk,” Ammon said.
“I can still taste the hay in it!” I said.
“Look at this!” Bree came from around the back of the ovoo after finishing her last round, hobbling on a single crutch she’d picked from the pile.
“Oh no, no, no!” Baagii said.
“What are you doing?! You should respect it. Aiy, yai, yai!” Ammon groaned.
“Some dead dude is going to come after you,” I said, horrified.
“No, they put it there because he healed,” Baagii laughed, “not because he died.”
In some ways, the occasional animal skulls resting nearby reminded me of an abandoned sacrificial site where someone may have been strung up to feed the vultures. I imagined that the torn blue pieces of silk waving in the breeze were remnants of abandoned bodies. But in its own way, it was majestic.
Walking around it the first time felt a bit silly, but I began to feel much more solemn by the third time as I inspected the simple treasures left behind more closely. It was like making a pact with many unseen people, holding hands in another place and another time in a sort of uniting as I tried to connect with each person who’d traveled past here. Where were they headed? What’s the story behind the crutch, and where did it come from? Had they come by camel? On foot? How long has it stood here? How many generations have met at this spot to share their faith and worship? I came to understand the beauty of something that I had, at first, simply thought of as being a bit silly, and the experience reaffirmed for me how special Mongolia was.
Chapter 32: From Sheep to Mutton
“Bree. Bree! I have to pee.”
“Well, go then! What are you waiting for?”
“Eerrgg,” I growled, stomping my foot. Searching my brain for a good excuse, I finally remembered the one that should do the trick. “Don’t forget Travel Rule #3!” and then whisper/shouted, “Buddy System!”
“Oh man, you are such a wimp,” she said, directing a charming smile at the shirtless boys who were all hammering away halfway under their trucks.
“What are you doing?! Stop being so flirty!” I tugged on her shoulder to pull her in towards me.
“I’m not doing anything. I’m allowed to do what I want,” she said, pushing me away. “Mom says I have to be independent and not hang on to Fernando,” she said flustered.
“Right. Does he know that?” I asked.
“Yah, of course!”
“Does he really?” I pressed.
“No, well, I dunno. Whatever! I’m allowed to do what I want,” she repeated, unsure of herself.
“I just hope you know what you’re doing.” I knew she still cared about Fernando, why else would she write him long letters every other night? I knew that she even cried herself to sleep some nights, but her hormones were raging, and Baagii was a welcome distraction. Then again, perhaps I was just jealous. If so, I certainly wasn’t about to admit it.
Before I knew it, we were sifting through the bushes to find a good log to sit on or hide behind, remembering to keep a watchful eye on the camp below to make sure we didn’t stray too far and lose our way. I was beginning to forget what electricity or door handles
or light switches felt like. Our potty stops had faded to nothing more than door-less, wall-less outhouses provided by nature. But I was surprised to find myself preferring the outdoors over the disgusting holes we’d used in China.
It was not a dense forest, by any means, and it was as dry as most of the land through which we’d travelled. Bree was a few metres ahead of me, as always, manoeuvring through the brush like she belonged there and letting the branches snap back in my face.
“Gosh dang it! Stop that!” I said, lifting a hand to the scratch on my cheek.
“Well, if you’d keep up!” She retaliated before taking a sharp right under a hanging bough. “Okay! This is a good spot. Now go! Nobody can see you.”
“Oh, man! I can still see them,” I said, beginning to unsnap the button at my waist while I did the pee-pee dance. I should really time it better than this and start hiking BEFORE I have to go this badly, I thought, but I’d wanted Bree to escort me as usual, and so I had to wait until she was ready. To hurry her along, I often had to encourage her, subtly, of course, to drink more.
“Well, first, they aren’t looking. Plus, they’re out in the open, and we’re not,” Bree insisted, “not to mention the fact that we’re looking down on them. Unless they’re trying to see us, I guess.”
“Okay, okay, okay!” I said, scooting out of my pants and squatting. Bree shook her head at me while she backed up to a thin tree trunk. I knew from her expression that she still couldn’t understand why I was so anal about the whole thing. And I knew she was right. It was a good spot. After all, we had chosen to hike up the hill rather than use the guesthouse’s outhouse again, largely because it was just a few wood planks hammered together over a shallow pit, but there were other reasons. Despite our continuous efforts to chase the goats away before using it, they were insanely persistent and always crept back. They’d nibble at the slat walls so vigorously that I was afraid it would collapse right on top of me while I was so vulnerable. I reluctantly had to use my nose-plugging hand to cuff the animals through the wide openings between the slats. Clouds of dust rose every time I smacked their hindquarters. One even reared up and threatened to kick me, and I could only pray it would change its mind. I flicked a young one in the nose and it jolted reflexively to the side, catching another in the belly with its short, stubby horns. Reflexively cringing and doing my best to hide behind the narrow slats, I was afraid I might start a stampede!
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