Terlij National Park

Were we in Colorado? Morfar certainly thought so. The trees, mostly pines, even some with pine borers, and poplars. The rivers were flat and fast, the mountains were like the rugged foothills. The bus let us off in the middle of - somewhere – but just at the edge of a road, where a horse cart was waiting for us with two young Mongolians, a fellow in a blue satin shirt, and his sister, Undra.

The horse cart was boarding over rubber tires, with an old carpet on top for comfort. We loaded up, our family, a German woman named Rosemarie, and the Mongolians. They took us half an hour, across three rivers (lift up the feet!) to their place, where they had three gers set up. We arranged for dinner and breakfast the next morning, but Undra’s mama came in while we were settling into the ger with trays of food: sweet bits of fried dough, flat bread filled with sour cream, fresh bread, and cups of hot milky, salted tea.

In the afternoon, we set off on a horseback ride. One horse, threatened by the proximity of the other, did a swift one-two, and managed to kick Joplin in both legs. Joplin decided to stay back and let Undra’s brother take the grumpy horse and lead McKinley. The horses were supposed to respond to the word, “choo!” but as most ‘rental’ horses, mine didn’t have much ‘choo.’ When Undra’s brother snapped off a willow twig and handed it to me, however, she found her latent choo and chugged off at a brisk trot. Just a glance at that twig was enough to give her fresh motivation.

Undra’s daughter, a lovely 9 year old with typical flat pink Mongolian cheeks, befriended McKinley, and they played chess on McKinley’s new Mongolian felt chess board.

Then in the evening, she brought down a game of Bones. You line up the spine bones of a sheep. Each bone can be tossed like a die, and land either as s Sheep, a Goat, a Camel or a Horse (depending on the bumps of the bone.) We set up a horse race, each player put their bone in line, horse side up. Then we rolled a set of four, hoping for them to land horse side up. It was harder than expected, and we were all whooped by the innocent looking Mongolian girl.