Hoyer Zagal Camp- 7/26

Jim on the hill we hiked up

Breakfast was late today (8am ) and we had until 10 before our first official adventure, so we hiked toward the hill behind the camp. I wish we had started earlier and gotten to the top, but we did get to the rock outcroppings and had a great view of the valley below. The bus took us off to a nomad camp about 4 miles away. The parents, two sons, and several grandchildren share 5 gers. We met some of the family, tried the local brew (fermented horse milk-- very thin and slightly beer-y), some dried yogurt slabs, and fried bread snacks. The bread was pretty good. Then the grandma brought in a large slab of dried yogurt and showed us how to cut it with a string to make smaller portions like the ones we were served...then it was our turn and after everyone had tried the technique with a string, we still had to finish the job.

The brown goat in the middle is faking -- she is not tied in the line.

Next was goat milking. Their methodology was a bit different from what we saw yesterday and several of the goats tried to dodge the lineup by slipping between their tied-up buddies, but the nomads were wise and went looking for them. A couple baby goats also dove into the mob in search of lunch and they were rooted out too. Towards the end of the tying process( maybe 30+ minutes for 140 goats), Jim and I spied a couple dodgers and dragged them by the horns into position. They were not happy!  They planted all four feet and resisted the whole way. Goat milking took over an hour and I was starting to melt as it got hotter. We watched mare milking... the mare's foal is brought over and starts to suckle,then is replaced by the milker. Horses give a LOT of milk and are milked 6  times a day.

Restored monastery building

When the milking was done, we got an ox cart ride and then helped make lunch...mutton dumplings. We were about as competent at that as yogurt cutting. Lunch was a wonderful vegetable broth followed by vegetable and mutton dumplings. Back at the camp we got a short break before going to a Buddhist temple destroyed by the Russians in 1934 (when they also killed 18,000+ monks) that has since been rebuilt. Imagine driving cross country in a full-sized bus. That's what we did. Most of the road are dirt tracks, and after yesterday's rain, were heavily rutted. At one point two rutted tracks vee-ed together and the bus backed up the hill off the tracks till he could cross and make his own trail. Definitely an E- ticket ride! The temple was small and we could see the ruins of the old one.
 
The trip back was faster because now the driver knew how to avoid the worst ruts. After dinner, we were treated to a performance by the camp manager who plays the two-stringed horse fiddle and does throat singing, a try unique experience. We ended the day by taking done and then re-constructing a   ger...definitely a 2-3 person job, but amazingly quick. Tomorrow we head to another camp further west.

Horse fiddle performance -- 30 second video too long for here.

After dinner, the camp manager gave us each a small glass of wine and on odd kind of dessert...sort of a vegetable samosa or pop-tart. He also wore a beautiful costume and performed with his horse fiddle doing a vocalization called throat singing. This is very hard to describe, but quite haunting. Since the horse fiddle is two-stringed like the Chinese erhu, I had expected a similar sound, but the box is bigger and the tones much lower. He had a CD! So we bought it and got it autographed. I also shot a short movie, which maybe we can post from home.