The Mongolian Outback: Day 3 - Naadam Festival and Yol Ice Valley

Naadam is a traditional, five-day festival held once a year in Mongolia and locally known as “eriin gurvan naadam”, “the three games of men”. These three games are archery, Mongolian wrestling,and horse racing. We had the luck to be in Mongolia during Naadam. From the photos and videos I’d seen, Naadam in Ulaanbaatar looked like a big hassle. Driving through traffic to a stadium to witness the events. However, some towns in the country also held their own Naadam. We were going to see the events in Dalanzadgad, a town of 24,000 people.

In Dalanzadgad, we also had the chance to take a shower, something you have to schedule when you live travel by ger. It was interesting making a pit stop to take a shower. I guess that’s what long haul truckers do.

Freshened up, we arrived on the outskirts of Dalanzadgad on the day of horse racing. Depending on the ages of the horses (and riders) the races range from 6 to 16 miles long. The jockeys are usually between 5 and 13 years old, and that was the case when we were there. It was pretty cool to see the riders coming in from a long distance away, approach, pass by, and as they crossed the finish line nearby realize that they were only slightly older than Vicente. Each race was separated by about 45 minutes, so we stayed for two.

We grabbed lunch in Dalanzadgad, and headed to Yolyn Am (Yol Ice Valley), in the western side of the Gobi Gurvansaikhan National Park and the end of the Altai Mountains.

In Yoliin Am, we rented horses to ride into the valley. Vicente rode with Toya (did I mention she was a genie in a bottle with Vicente?) and the rest of us mounted our own horses. We had trouble maintaining similar speeds so Milagro and I paired up and moved ahead. We passed through the valley to the furthest point at which you could arrive on horseback. We then dismounted and left our horses with some people and hiked further into the valley which had now become a canyon.

It was July so most of the ice had melted away. However, the tall narrow ridges that ranged from sandstone to igneous to metamorphic rocks, depending on the location or altitude, did such a good job of blocking the sun in places that even in the middle of summer there was still snow and ice along many sections of the valley. Milagro and I conjectured that Soledad and Vicente would turn around at the dismount point which mean if we wanted to explore we’d have to do so quickly. As we started jogging across the rocks, snow, ice, and river streams a young Mongolian kid started running with us. It was pretty fun. Together we spotted and stopped to observe marmots as well as a mountain goat very high up on a ridge. I hadn’t jogged with Milagro much before so that made it even more special.

Eventually, we decided we had gone far enough, turned back around, and started jogging back to the horses. We picked up the horses and ran them back for about 30 minutes to the trailhead entrance arriving almost on time with the rest of the group. We’d had our first Mongolian horseback riding experience. Nice! It was awesome to watch Milgro ride ahead of me as the cool wind from the remaining valley ice blew around us.

On the way out of Yol Ice Valley, we came across some yak herders that were trying to pick up their herd. What a treat to watch the guys try to get each yak into the back of an 18 wheeler flat-bed.

We drove out of Yol Valley and set up camp in a new group of gers.

This place had oddly marked out a perimeter with brick type rocks. We used the rocks as boundaries, broke out the soccer ball we’d brought to play with Vicente, and kicked it around. Before long we were playing a game with 4 girls from Japan, Korea, and Thailand whom had met years back in middle school in Vietnam, as well as Helen and Espen, two travelers from Norway. Kids, soccer balls… they made making friends much easier. It was superb to be able to play a sport with new friends and the Mongolian countryside as the backdrop. We all agreed that was the most scenic place that we’d ever played a game of soccer.

Oh yeah, remember those tweeting birds from earlier that I could never find. I think they were in the ground. This time, right on the border of our soccer field.