Item from the Past: September 13, 1994

We went horseback riding today, and we got riding lessons from the Master of the Corral — a weatherworn, stocky Mongolian of good cheer and few teeth. That is, he showed us our horses, on we got, and off we went.

About a dozen of us rode single file. Horse trails marked the land, curling across unkempt meadows and skirting wooded hills. For half an hour, we rode along, seeing few things that a North American would think of as rural, such as gravel tracks, abandoned shacks or even fences.

For a while, we joked with each other about the condition of our mounts, who were past their prime, and about our inexperience in the saddle, at least in this nation of horsemen. But before long, the deep quiet of the place began to sink in. There were no mechanical noises. Just your breathing, your horses’ snorts, the neighing of the other horses, and not much else.

Except during water crossings. That part of north-central Mongolia is surprisingly well watered. We crossed little streams, shallow but rocky rivers, lazy brooks and occasional — more than occasional — fords across fast rivers. The Master of the Corral knew the easiest places to ford, and rest of us followed, slogging, splashing and hanging on.

“Try not to fall on your heads,” said our guide Altai, who was at the front with the Master of the Corral. He often put his near-perfect English to use in warnings of one kind or another.

As we came out of the woods, our destination spread out in front of us all at once. We were at the mouth of a broad, grassy valley peppered with yaks and horses. Our guides galloped off toward the far end of the valley. The rest of us were inspired to do the same. We spread out and flew the length of the valley, kicking up our own breeze, with the high hills and high sun and livestock whirling by.

Once we’d had some fun charging around under the noontime Mongolian sun, Altai let us know that we were invited to rest here. Besides a fair number of yak and horses, the valley had a human population. At one end stood a solitary ger surrounded by a handful of scraggly trees, some tools and a few metal drying racks. At that moment the racks were supporting pans filled with blocks of something white and crumbly, about the color of tofu. We would soon find out what it was.

The Master of the Corral motioned for us to enter the ger. We all managed to squeeze in and sit ourselves in a circle around the wood-burning stove in the middle. The interior had visible signs of prosperity, at least in Mongolian terms. A proud family possession, maybe just a step below its livestock and a fine family altar adorned with photos and incense burners, seemed to be its radio, a not-too-shabby Japanese brand featuring AM, FM and short wave.

The woman of the house — of the ger — greeted us with a wry smile. Mongolia may be famous for its horsemen, but traditionally women did the important work of milk and meat production from the herds. No doubt our elderly hostess, who had the passing of a good many Mongolian winters drawn on her face, had done her share of this kind of work.

Now she was helping provide for her family in a more modern fashion: attending to passing tourists. I was certain she was related to, or at least a lifelong neighbor of the Master of the Corral. She was surely getting a cut of the $2 an hour we were paying him for the ride. You can argue that this somehow corrupts their culture, but our hostess would probably have none of it. She’d rather have an excellent Japanese radio.

Her eyes were bright and her gestures crisp. She immediately turned to the task, along with her daughter or daughter-in-law, of distributing yak cheese and milk to us. It was the cheese we’d seen drying outside.

“If you don’t like it, you should eat a little in any case,” said Altai as a plate went around. “It’s rude not to eat at least a little.”

Yak cheese looks like laundry detergent and smells like it’s been in a hot glove compartment a while. Is it healthful? Perhaps, but don’t look for it in supermarkets any time soon. Maybe you have to grow up with it to appreciate it. We were polite, and nibbled a bit, but none of us went for seconds. Our hostess didn’t seem to mind.

Yak milk, on the other hand, is something like buttermilk. It went down well and seemed to solidify in my stomach, but it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling. Just the thing, in fact, to fortify one’s constitution before the ride back through the hills of Mongolia.