Chapter 424: Falling in Love with a Wild Horse
At the beginning of November, there is sometimes a little snow and cold snow. But when I got out of the city and went to the grassland, it was not much the same as expected, not only was it not cold, but the grass was not yellow. The road is full of natural scenery. It's fascinating.
There are many places that have been set aside as national parks. Unlike some natural parks in China, where the traces of man-made construction are heavier, Mongolia's national parks are basically the original appearance.
When the whole army had crossed the river, there was an ox that stood still by the river. After a while, a calf came to the river, and then he realized that it was the big cow waiting for the calf to cross the river together.
Because of its proximity, it has become a holiday park for Ulaanbaatar citizens, and in addition to seeing the scenery, you can also camp, horseback riding, golfing, and in the summer, you can also raft in the Tula River, which flows through the park, in short, it is a good place for an outing.
On the banks of the Tula River, where the Tula River meanders, there are occasional herds of cattle walking around and grazing across the river. When crossing the river, the big cows guard the calves, and there is harmony. The mountains in the distance are covered with golden larch, layered on top of each other.
The terrain of Trelegi is very interesting, and the slowly undulating grasslands occasionally encounter some abrupt and huge strange rocks, many of which have holes in them, and each strange rock has some legends behind it.
For example, the Lama Cave: the Great Purge Movement in the Soviet era, the destruction of Buddhism in the whole territory of Mongolia. The cave in the strange rock of Treleji became a place for Mongolian monks to take refuge from disasters and save the lives of many monks.
I couldn't help but try to climb into the lama cave to see what it was, the cave was not high, but the almost right-angle caving road made us cautious every step we took. Finally crawled to the narrow hole, turned on the flashlight and leaned down to move into the hole. The depth of the cave was not deep, and it soon came to an end. It is impossible to imagine how the more than 100 monks hiding in this narrow cave during the Great Purge survived the vast dark night and ushered in the dawn of freedom.
The most famous turtle stone is very large, and there is a hole in the center, which is said to have been a place where the queen hid treasures, but anyone who went to the cave to steal the treasure would be entangled by the queen in their dreams at night. The surface is smooth and steep, and throughout the ages, only one person has climbed to the top, and that is Galdan Khan.
Gently undulating mountains covered with larch and birch forests, and large grasslands. There are carnivorous wolves and eagles, herbivorous Mongolian wild horses, red deer, argali, lynx, Mongolian marmots and other animals, thus forming a complete ecological chain. But the main thing, and the reason for the creation of this national park, is the Mongolian wild horse.
They used to be one of the owners of this land, but since the beginning of the last century, due to poaching, war, research, etc., their numbers have decreased dramatically, and by the 60s of the last century, Mongolia declared that there were no more wild horses in the country. By the 90s, wild wild horses in the world were almost extinct, and wild horses in captivity were also in danger.
At this time, animal protection organizations in developed countries began to take action, releasing the only more than 300 captive wild horses in zoos in several European and American countries to the Mongolian plateau, and Mongolia also fully cooperated, and Hustai National Park, located two hours southwest of Ulaanbaatar, has been home to wild horses since then.
After the wild horses were released into the wild, the first generation was not very adaptable, and in the second generation, they adapted to life in the wild. But from the 90s to the present, the number of wild horses has only increased by more than 100 in more than 20 years.
This is due to the special temperament of wild horses, a herd has only one stallion and a group of mares, if there are other stallions to challenge the stallions of this herd and succeed in the challenge, they become the new leader of the herd, and the first thing the new leader does is to kill all the offspring of the old man, and this cruel competition process leads to a very low breeding rate of wild horses.
The undulating curves of the mountains stretched into the distance, and everyone looked intently into the depths of the grassland, hoping to find something, but they drove very deep, except for a few marmots that stretched out their heads to see the lively marmots, there was no shadow of any other animals. Soon the sun was setting in the west,
When I turned over a slope, I suddenly found a point in the distance, getting closer and bigger.
Suddenly, I saw a lonely wild horse. The tour guide said it was a young male wild horse. Well-built, but a little tired, with a short brown mane on his neck, a hunched back, and a pure white belly, he walked very slowly, and approached us in a hurry, perhaps because he had failed to challenge the leader of the herd, and had been driven out, and had suffered a little wound. We got out of the car and gently leaned closer to it, but didn't want to disturb it. The evening sun sprinkled on the prairie and sprinkled on its back.
Rounding a small hill again, in the distance in the larch forest, there was a herd of deer, the first deer looked at us vigilantly, the other deer were leisurely grazing, we approached gently, but unfortunately the deer was more panicked than the horse, and the head deer commanded the deer to run away quickly.
By this time the sun was setting and we had to go back, and the little stallion was still grazing quietly and walking around not far away. Suddenly, a group of animals came out of the hillside a little farther away. Walking in our direction.
I don't know if it's to make up for the regret just now, it's another group of deer. Although they quickened their pace and changed direction when they saw us, they were much closer than the previous group, and the head deer pressed at the end of the herd, their antlers erect and covered with a layer of gold in the setting sun. Their bodies are so light and agile, maybe they are in a hurry to go home.
There is a local legend that a long, long time ago, when the Immortal Heaven came to determine the order of this world, twelve animals were chosen as the twelve zodiac signs. Eleven of them soon became famous, each of them went to the throne, and the only vacant spot was contested by camels and mice.
The camel thought about it, he was tall, this was an advantage, and said to Changshengtian: Let's compete to see the sunrise the next morning. Changshengtian didn't think much about it and agreed. The mouse muttered, this camel is really bad, his small stature, obviously suffers. But he was unwilling to admit defeat and accepted the game. It thought and thought, and finally came up with a brilliant solution.
The camel was the first to see the sun, so it stood straight and straight, and all night gazed intently at the east. And the rat climbed on top of the camel's head and slept peacefully in the thick fluff for the night. At dawn the next day, the rat stretched and stood up, but his face turned west.
When the sun is about to rise, the west is the first to be dyed with a crimson pink morning glow because of the refraction of the sun. The mouse screamed: Haha, I saw the sun first!
The camel turned its head to the west, saw the pink sky, thought that it was indeed the direction of the rising sun, and was very annoyed, and bowed its head in the gray and admitted defeat. So the rat was among the zodiac signs.
The camel is not regarded as a zodiac sign, and it is unwilling. But the matter has come to this point, and there is no way to undo it. I had to ask Changshengtian to promise myself one thing: to add the characteristics of each zodiac sign to his appearance. Changshengtian agreed.
From then on, the camel had the ears of a mouse, the hooves of a cow, the paws of a tiger, the lips of a rabbit, the form of a dragon, the eyes of a snake, the mane of a horse, the fur of a sheep, the color of a monkey, the crown of a chicken, the shape of a dog's legs, and the tail of a pig.
Came to a nearby herdsman's house as a guest, and the name was funny - Sukhbaatar. It has the same name as the great man in modern Mongolian history. And he is also worthy of this resounding name, he is a national first-class herdsman.
Don't underestimate this title, herdsmen are a profession, and the government will conduct an annual evaluation of herders, first at the county level, then at the provincial level, and finally at the national level. The selection criteria are based on the mortality rate and number of livestock. And Sukhbaatar stood out in these competitions and won the title of national first-class herdsman.
Every Mongolian family is proud to have a wrestler, and the son of Sukhbaatar's family, who has won awards, puts his son's honor in the most prominent position in the yurt, and as long as someone stops to watch, he will eagerly introduce his powerful son.
The small snacks and drinks that entertain the guests are cottage cheese and mare's milk wine. Cottage cheese is a sour condensate fermented after cow and goat milk is filtered out, and milk and goat milk can be used as cheese, which can be eaten directly or spread on bread.
Mare's milk wine is fermented sour and sour mare's milk, but it has a sweet aftertaste, and in this place where meat is often eaten, it can relieve the greasy diet, and it is said that it also has stamina.
Here, if the guest drinks the mare's milk in front of the host, it means to fill it up again. Under his hospitality, everyone went from being a little forced at first to really tasting the sweetness of mare's milk wine, and drank the whole vat of mare's milk wine in a short time.