Camels

So there were a few things I knew I had to do when I found out I was coming to Mongolia, one of which was ride a camel.  I mean, c'mon, it IS Mongolia, land of dinosaurs in the Gobi and camels roving the landscape.  After finding out that there are camels in Dornod and asking around about ownership, it turns out that Tsetsegdelger, a nurse at APDC, has a brother who owns a small camel herd 25km outside the city.  After negotiating a date and time, we snagged a cab and head out to the hudoo yesterday to be "silly American tourists" for a few hours.

There they are!  Camels to the left, baby cows in the pen to the right.

The family also had horses.

The family's ger with the camels in the background.

Tээмэ!

The sad old man camel.

Aav and duus getting the white camel ready for us to ride.  She was bellowing and a bit stubborn about it!

Testing her out with a duu first.  Yep, she'll do.

My turn!

Ready...

Up!

Camel butt.  Great shot, Koty. 

I had the biggest, dopiest grin on my face the whole time.

So.  Much.  Fun!

Sain tsagaan temee, sain.

I can only imagine what the duu was thinking, leading me around.

I loved her, minii jijig tsagaan temee.

Aaaaand back down.  :(

Koty on the temee.

After we were done riding the family made us khorkhog (although my guts have been doing weird things for the last 2 weeks so I didn't eat any), we gushed more thanks and then were on our way back to the city.  It was a super fun afternoon, and an experience I'll never forget.