My interest in the wild horses had been peaked after some conversations with a journalist friend Camilla who was/is writing a story about the Takihs.  Essentially these 200+ horses are the result of a successful reintroduction of wild horses to Mongolia.  It is my understanding that this species formerly ran free on the steppe, but due to breeding with domestic horses, overgrazing by livestock, and other causes they had disappeared.  The only living descendants of these horses had to be transported from various zoos around the world to reintroduce the species.  The current herd started out in the mid 1990’s with 18 individuals and has been growing strong to a number well over 200 now.  The Takihs are the only living wild ancestor of the domestic horse.  Internally the they have 2 additional chromosomes compared to the domestic horse. Externally they have more of a blunt snout which is most noticeable when viewed from the side.

After bumming around in the Golden Gobi guest house for a few days trying to put a trip west together, I was restless and wanted to get back out into the countryside. Lucky for me I met Alex and Adam, two fellow photographers who were up for a short trip to photograph the Takihs.  Armed with a just a bit of background information and a vague idea of where to actually find the horses, we were off.

The single-mindedness of 3 photographers quickly preparing to go off on wildlife shoot, may have left some basic preparations less than fully thought out.  Our menu for the trip was a grab bag of ingredients thrown together quickly at the state department store. Our cooking and eating utensils were not really considered and would later need to be crafted from water bottles.  Of course every bit of camera gear, batteries, memory, lenses, film, etc. was fully prepared and accounted for.  It’s just some basic things like food, water, and proper sleeping gear that get left as afterthoughts.  So for anyone unaccustomed to the joys of traveling with photographers, a word of caution.  If you find you are the only non-photographer in a particular group headed out in a jeep, boat, horse, plane, or whatever, don’t assume the overwhelming amount of gear carried includes the basic necessities. 

So without boring anyone too much with the details, I’ll just say that our driver was left with plenty of good stories to tell his Mongolian friends about how weird and backwards foreigners can be.  What we ate, how we ate it, how late we stay up taking pictures in the dark, how early we wake up to take more pictures, and why we run around at night in circles with our headlamps on must have all provided some amusement. 

In the interest of doing his part to entertain us, our driver maintained a rally car pace across the steppe on the way back to UB. He never slowed down for any rocks, sand, ditches, goats, or turns, only occasionally stopping to let the engine cool down.