Back to the regular life?

Are things getting back to "normal" for me? Gosh I hope not but at the same time, eventually, we all settle back into the rhythms of our everyday life, even after travels to exotic lands.

Lucky for me, many things in my regular life are activities I love to do such as climbing and hanging with friends so that helps. I've tried a couple climbing crags since coming back from Mongolia. I've had some reservations about climbing crags and those haven't changed. (For the non-climbers, climbing crags are areas that people can climb single pitch length of rock and there are many climbs beside each other.) I'm not a big fan of climbing with lots of other people around. The quintessential difference between the sport and traditional climber as I see it is that sport climbers don't worry about other people being around and trad climbers actively avoid them. Even before climbing, the trad climber hopes no one will be on their route. If someone else is climbing on the same route that means falling rocks and in many cases it signals you'll be climbing somewhere else that day.

Having said all this, when I've gotten my head out of my ass and gone sport climbing with friends I've had a great day out. It's fun and casual, fear factor is lower and sometimes that's a good way to spend a day.

But still, the call of the mountains is strong and it's not hard to convince me to get out there on a trad route. I still bemoan the rockies limestone and its insistence to move, slide, drop and scare the bejesus out of me.

Tom and I got out a couple weeks ago and climbed the "Guides Route" on the East End of Rundle. For the most part the climbing was cruisey, route finding was a challenge in some spots and a few of the crux moves felt harder than the assigned grade of 5.6. For Tom and I there is always an element of adventure when we go out, maybe that's because of our challenge with directions and reading topos - who knows! We both maintain a positive attitude and I think that's part of the reason why we climb well together. When we topped out the sun was just beginning to set behind the mountains. The light had that golden glow and we were bathed in mountain beauty.

This past weekend was spent with a bunch of gals and Deanne who was celebrating her Stagette. We still enjoyed the mountain scenery by going on an organized river rafting trip on the Kananaskis river before getting into the serious drinking/partying that is required of any stag or stagette. Sure Sunday was a write-off for me. I wasn't "technically" hungover, just slow moving... ya that's it.

But the best part of the weekend had to be that while I was out partying with the girls, Colin was working steadily on the climbing gym in the garage and Tom was busy organizing the gear room in the basement. I mean.. can it get any better than that? A couple man-servants at home while I was out playing? Maybe getting back to the regular life isn't so bad after all....

Contortionists and Horses

Most cultures take pride in one thing or another about themselves. In Canada we have Hockey and Maple Syrup. Germany, well I know that beer springs to mind and some guy in Leiderhosen and a funny hat.

I had no idea what Mongolia was known for. Ghenggis Khan I suppose and the idea of fierce warriors who subjugated more people and land in 25yrs than the Roman Empire did in 400. Yup I read that in a book so it must be true. I also read that Mongolia was known for Cashmere, I can't say that knocked my socks off.

When we arrived in Mongolia we were exposed to what Mongolians are quite proud of and apparently world renowned for. Their throat singing and their contortionists. The throat singing is eerie, odd noises emanating from someone when his mouth isn't moving that much. Think of a human digereedoo. But everyone could appreciate the skill involved. Next on the agenda was contortionists. I've heard of individuals being afraid of clowns but I think I've created a whole new phobia category regarding watching contortionists. As soon as those little girls in their sequined skin tight jump suits walked out I got a queasy stomach. I recall seeing a contortionist when I was quite young. Almost a memory of a memory and I had talked myself into believing that the person I had watched oh-so-long-ago at some fair couldn't possibly have been such a pretzel. It obviously made a lasting impression on me.

But sure enough there were these young girls twisting themselves over backwards and smiling at us between their legs like some creepy spider. First off it just isn't natural and second off god knows what is happening to their poor organs being stretched like that. Of course it only got worse as eventually one girl was able to hold her entire body weight by her teeth and still look like some weird accident victim. I imagine these gals get plucked from their homes by the age of 5 and start learning the craft. In the time we were in Mongolia I think I saw 4 groups of contortionists perform and none of them looked older than 14. "Watching" is a loose term, most of the time my eyes were averted and I was waiting for it to be over. But the rest of the group seemed to like the shows. For the record Mongolia also has a culture rich in singing and dance and we were treated to some great performances.

Now this was in the city. Country nomads are far too practical to be twisting their body into odd configurations. Hell, they have yaks to milk and goats to herd. However it was in the country that I saw what Mongolians are also know for and perhaps take the most pride in. Their horses. The Mongolian saying is "A man without a horse is like a bird without wings" There are 10 horses for every man, woman and child in Mongolia. And in the northern part of Mongolia where we traveled we saw the horses. Herds and herds running along the Mongolian steppes, hanging out by the water holes, all being watched over by usually one herder on a horse. I didn't expect to see cowboys in Mongolia but there they were.

Horses and Mongolians go far back in recorded history. Ghenggis Khan was successful because his men could move swiftly and stealthily on horseback. He never had an infrantry, men on foot were useless to him. Since each man could carry everything he needed on his horse; food, weapons etc, there was never any need for supply trains. They were efficient and agile warriors and as history has recorded, almost unstoppable.

Today most Mongolians would know how to ride a horse, even the city dwellers. The guides and folks who looked after us on our trek all had horses and grew up with them. One of the main sports in the yearly Nadaam Festival is Horse Racing. The race is 42km over land and the competitors are boys some as young as 6 or 7.

If you've read my other blogs I mentioned that Mongolians also eat Horses. They are a practical people that's for sure. When the horse can no longer contribute, it's final give away is as food.

I didn't know what to expect before getting to Mongolia. Most of what I'd read was on the history, not of Mongolia today. From sequins to equine, Mongolia was a surprise.

Pass the Yak Butter please

I thought I would blog about the culinary experiences I had in Mongolia. I am an adventurer after all so perhaps I should consider food with the same sense of experimentation? - Ya no.

My second food experience in Mongolia was in Ulaan Bataar at a restaurant that was a very large scale Ger (round tent). I reckon this restaurant was created for tourists to give them an authentic Mongolian experience. I think they keep it very colourful and amaze you with contortionists and throat singers so you forget the fact that you're eating mutton. Lamb I don't mind, and yes I'm aware that's the cute little baby I'm eating. But somehow mutton just doesn't have the same appeal to me. This meat was essentially steamed making it less stringy but it was sort of fatty and and wasn't saying "hmm hmmm good".

Oh, first, I must say that many of my travelling companions were quite happy with Mongolian cuisine and cheerfully ate everything that was put in front of them. Me... not so much. I got through my meal and reminded myself that I wasn't in Mongolia for the food. After that first *authentic* experience our guide took us to other ethnic resturants which was fine with me. We ate decent Mexican and Indian food as well. But I always sort of wondered about the meat. What exactly was I eating when it was shrouded in a sauce or diced up with vegetables? A little voice inside would say "Does it really matter?" and my appetite readily agreed that, why yes, it did matter.

On our drive/trek to our basecamp. Our cook Balorma whipped up some great salads and stir fries with vegetables. If the meat was too fatty I just pushed it aside and concentrated on the other *stuff*. I was by no means going to go hungry.

But a few times I tasted a meat that was abit funky to me. It sort of looked like beef and when I ate it it started out *tasting* like beef but would have this tangy kick to it. I knew it wasn't mutton so I'm wondering.. what is this?! That question alone caused me to decide not to eat any more of the mystery meat. Turns out that while back in UB we were at a buffet and one of the animals on the menu was Horse. I do have to admit to asking the woman at the buffet three times what the meat in one particular dish was to confirm. And each time she answered "Horse". But maybe I was just misunderstanding her accent see... I think she lost patience with me when I actually Whinnied at her to confirm for the 3rd time that it was in fact Horse. She looked at me like I was a lunatic and replied yet again: "Horse!". I know the French eat Horse and even the French-Canadians back east eat Horse. My family is French-Canadian and we never ate any god-damn Horse and I have no interest in eating what I call an "animal friend". Maybe this is a silly distinction and I'm sure Mr Pig and Mr Cow would love me to eat more Horse. But Pig and Cow aren't my friends, while Horses, Cats and Dogs are, so I prefer not to see any of them on my dinner plate. I suspect that my funky "mystery meat" during our trek was most likely Black Beauty.

The Mongolians love horses so much they also like to drink fermented Horse milk called Airak. *Fermented* is a nice term for sour. They really love their sour Horse milk. We were invited to a nomadic family's Ger and as is custom, they served us all Airak. (picture shown) This presented a slight problem, the first time I took a tiny sip of Airak the day before, I almost spit it out and made an icky face and thrashed around abit. I had a reasonable idea that this behaviour would be unacceptable. So how to drink the Airak and look like I'm enjoying it... Luckily we were all in the Ger and none of us were being individually scrutinized. I did a combo "Hold-my-breath-don't-breath-as-I swallowed-the-Airak". The result was a slight tang in my throat but I was able to drink and keep a smile on my face. Whew!

In another Ger we were presented with Milk Tea which is interesting as well. It's basic tea that has lots of milk and salt in it rather than sugar. While it tasted different, it wasn't hard to drink. These folks also had dried Yak Curds for us and some deep fried treats. I opted for the deep fried treat and decided to try the butter. Looked like butter, tasted like butter, you just had to ignore the Yak hair on the end of the spoon and all would be well.

I think we were all touched by the generosity displayed by the Mongolian people we met. They were more than willing to invite 12 tourists into their home and serve us Tea, Milk and what have you. Mongolian style of food has evolved out of centuries of cooking with what they have and their nomadic lifestyle. Animals are portable and provide for most of their dietary needs.

There are many things I'll remember fondly about Mongolia, food I'll remember as a "Character Building" experience!

Back so soon?

Am I back home already? The time is 1am and jetlag still has its firm grip on my sleeping patterns. Normally I would be snoozing by now, but now I prefer to nap around 11am, it's a nice time to sleep for about 4hrs. Not exactly condusive to my working life but who wants to worry about trivialities like that? Not me, not just yet, I still want to enjoy the glow of my holiday and the detachment from my regular life, for a few more days please.

I didn't want to give a chronological travel blog, firstly because I find them them somewhat boring when I've read
Morning: ate breakfast and journaled... blah blah blah. And secondly I probably couldn't remember it that way if I wanted to, I did write in my journal for posterity but I'd rather blog about experiences that I'll remember. And besides you really don't care what I ate for breakfast do you? Mostly cereal if you must know.

But first things first. All of my travel companions and I summited our main objective Mt Khuiten. Approximately 4300m. Summit day was iffy but it was now or never on that morning. We had been virtually tent-bound at high camp the previous day and we had only one day to go for the top. Our summit attempt was 600m over a rolling glacier and eventually postholing up a steep snowslope to the top. The weather was our biggest nemesis clouding visibility. The kudos of course go to our leaders Helen and Tim who forged the trail. Our altimeter showed us our high point as we couldn't see anything. Views at the top would have been great but I think we were all gratefull for the summit at least.

All of us were Canadian Alpine Club of Canada members except for our token American, Milly, who says she feels more Canadian than American and we were happy to have her along. There were 12 of us with ages ranging from 36 to 67. A cast of interesting characters, each of us bringing our previous climbing and travelling experience to the group. Stories were shared, jokes were told. Friendships were forged bumping around in vans, on the mountains, around the dining table and over toasts of vodka drank from plastic cups.

The mountains in the Altai range are beautiful and remote. We had to fly from Ulaan Bataar for 3 hrs to the small town of Olgi and then drive by vehicle on tenuous dirt roads for 2 days. Where we abondoned our rickety soviet vans for foot power, trekking for 15km to our basecamp. No trek would be complete without the obligatory icy river crossing in ones' underwear and Mongolia didn't dissapoint in this regard. You just haven't lived until you thought your feet were going to fall off from icy pain, or the adrenaline rush of knowing how fucking cold it would be if you lost your footing and fell in.

Basecamp was a collection of assorted climbers from all over the world, a couple gers(mongolian round tent houses), camels, horses, camel and horse drivers, a few mangy dogs, cooks, guides, porters and even a dodgy half crazed Romanian climber. In the big scheme of climbing situations we all agreed that the cook is the most valued resource. Our cook, Balorma, was a great gal who served up sumptuous hearty meals. I have plenty to say about Mongolian cuisine but I'll save that for another blog.

Being at the base of these mountains felt like such a priviledge and something that each of us had given up significant time, money and resources to do. I think that anything that is worked for becomes even more rewarding. Relative to other climbing areas there was a very small amount of climbers at the base camp. There were no conga lines to this summit. On our way up to high camp we passed two groups on their way down. At high camp we were the only party there. Except for the crazy Romanian climber who by the grace of climbing angels made it to high camp on his own without falling into a crevass. However I think he had enough close calls to beg almost each of us if he could get on our rope to the summit. Helen our trip leader very wisely told him that he could not join our ropes. First off he smelled really bad and secondly he smelled really bad. Thirdly without any prior knowledge of his experience or his mental health it could have put our rope team in jepardy if at some point he started acting as crazy as he looked. And did I mentioned he smelled bad? However Helen did say he could follow in our footsteps if he so chose to. This didn't guarantee his safety but upped his odds of surviving considerably.

I really, really wanted to summit Khuiten. What a surprise, a climber wanting to summit. However my desire became more acute when our Mongolian guide Shenai shyly asked me if I would deliver prayer flags to the summit on behalf of her family. They are seen in my hand along with the Canadian flag in this blog photo. I got to know Shenai over the time she spent as our guide and caretaker while in the city and in the mountains. A bright and articulate young woman, it was fun and informative getting to know her and to practice my fledging Mongolian. However she was not a climber so she stayed at basecamp with our cook awaiting our return from highcamp. In some ways Mongolia felt like a familial place for me and I felt a deep synchronicity to be apart of someone's family even if only as a courier for a larger request. But a courier for prayers resonates profoundly for me and connects with my own personal shamanic beliefs. I was honoured to be of service for Shenai and her family. We didn't find a summit marker in the the deep snow on the summit but I know that in some reality those prayer flags will always be waving in the wind as they are in the photo.

I'll share more blogs about my experiences in Mongolia but I know that in years to come I'll carry the memory of Khuiten, family and prayer flags among the most cherished.