Mongolia: Golden Eagles and Back to Ulaanbaatar - Days 11, 12, 13

The next morning was our 11th and last of the tour. I woke up thinking, “I need to go see those golden eagles some more!” Realizing that we’d probably never get the chance again in our lives to hold an eagle, we asked Baynaa to make a pitstop on the way out of town back outside the walls of Erdene Zuu. I was nervous that it as too early for the eagles, but they were there. Each of us, including Milagro for the second time, took our opportunity with the animals. It was spectacular.

After that we made the long trip back to Ulaanbaatar. You could feel the temperature increasing as we decreased in elevation. We stopped off at a highway restaurant an hour outside of the capital city that got our hopes up, but ultimately failed to deliver. And boy was it hot inside. We continued on, passing through a traffic jam of people leaving the last day of Ulaanbaatar’s Naadam event and arrived back at Soyolo’s guest house, where we said our goodbyes to Toya and Baynaa and spent the next three nights.

This time, however, the guest house was full so we slept in a room connected to Soyolo’s family’s apartment where Soylo, his wife, his 11 year old daughter, and 4 year old son Soyunba lived. This was nice as Vicente and Soyunba played for hours. I’m not sure if it’s due to the Mongolian to English translation and how they teach English in Mongolia, but Soyunba loved to use the word “bro”. “Vicente, you got to do it like this, bro. Hey bro (to me) can Vicente stay?

Back in Ulaanbaatar, we were very jazzed to be reconnected with life’s simple pleasures. There was a hot shower, toilet to sit upon, a TV with sofa in the general area, upon which the kids just jumped up and down in excitement, and chairs to sit at.

While there are appear to be rules, at least their are urinals!

Mmm...beer

Further determined to treat ourselves to the fruits of the modern age, we went to an amusement park, walked around town, and hung out at a weekend night concert. The amusement park was an entertaining diversion. Its man roller coaster had a successive double loop that was so tight that I could feel myself starting to black out after we rode it the third time in a row (Milagro wanted to keep going).

There was a White Walker at the amusement park

With 11 days of eating sheep meat and root vegetables behind us, we ate at Pizza Hut, Burger King, a lovely Indian restaurant, and even even met up with our friends Elen and Espen at a sushi restaurant. And ice cream. And we ate ice cream, lots of ice cream. I think we stopped at every single ice cream stall we encountered. The kids had been great troopers for our 11 day bumpy road trip so we thought they, and we, deserved it.  We also happened along a music festival.

Our plane for Myanmar departed at 6:30p. Soyolo arranged for Bayanaa to take us to the airport, which was nice because we wouldn’t arrive in Mandalay for 24 hours.

What a great time. If you’re looking for any type of overland tour in Mongolia, from camping in a tent to sleeping in a ger to top end (which we didn’t do), I highly recommend Soyolo and his company Adventure Rider Mongolia. They are very open, honest and great to work with.