I love deserts and in a few weeks will be heading to the Gobi in Mongolia. In preparation, my online searches have produced a number of good first-hand reports of other people's Mongolian adventures.
In particular, one woman, traveling solo, had joined up with a couple of strangers and hired a guide to show them some of the country. After traveling several hours along tracks masquerading as roads, they stopped to go horseback riding. When I read her account I had tears of laughter running down my cheeks:
"...I was ready for a horse with a bit of Va Va Voom. What I actually got was a broken, shopping trolley type of horse. I´d point it in the direction that I wanted it to go, give it a little encouragement to go forward and wait. It´d take a few steps forward and then slowly drift off to the right as if it had a broken wheel, before coming to a halt. It was a bit of a pain to keep pulling to the left and saying Choooo, but at least I got there. MaiKhoi´s (the American) and Anne´s (Danish) horse both refused to go at all, and if they did it was in the wrong direction. I took advantage of these times to bond with my horse. I´d find a nice bit of green grass and then let it eat while the guide would head back to rescue the other two..." (posted by Irax at Travelpod.com)
I'll remember to thoroughly check out my horses and camels before leaving the ger.
