| Ride Mongolia's Steppe |
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Page 4 of 4  DISTANCES DON’T MEAN MUCH ON THE STEPPE, where few things begin and nothing really ends. Ask a nomad, “How far?” and he points. A bent finger means nearby. Straight and rigid: It could take weeks to get there. For thousands of square miles nothing rises more than 900 feet, and the emptiness can trick you. The silence is so complete I twice try to pop my ears, thinking they’re clogged.The helicopter takes off the next day from Hamid’s, and we soar east over rivers and sloughs, watching the sky iron wrinkles from the land. After two hours, we plop down on the steppe near Choibalsan, in far eastern Mongolia. Heat waves ripple across the horizon like a stampede, and a herdsman wanders up—his ger is just a bent finger away. We hop into Land Cruisers, driven for the occasion from Ulan Bator, and once again we’re on the highway of Go Where You Please. “Look for dots,” says Susan Antenen, a conservation scientist, as we jump out somewhere in Toson Hustai Nature Reserve. “They’re gazelles.” Sure enough, we see them, herds perhaps a thousand strong, moving slowly across the plains. At 1,800 square miles, Toson Hustai is half the size of Yellowstone and frequented by some of Asia’s last nomadic gazelles, which come to calve among the spear grass and millet. The region is also home to about 140 families of herders. The Conservancy hopes this could become a flagship park; with management, the area could balance nomadic grazing land with conservation. The laws are mostly on the books to protect the area, but enforcing them is another matter. 
“Just two days ago I spotted a guy poaching gazelles, but I couldn’t catch him,” Amar, the park’s lone ranger, tells me. “They used to be on horses. Now they have cars and motorcycles. I have a motorcycle but no gas.”We round a hill to find tents, our home for the evening, set up in the grass. McCormick goes with a few guests to search for eagles, while I wander out for a hike. After what feels like hours, the tents finally blend into the steppe, and I lie on my back in a patch of needle-and-thread grass and count puffball clouds hanging in the cerulean sky. Out here I feel more like a dot than I ever have on any mountaintop or open sea. The sensation of being so far removed from the world while being swaddled in its silky embrace is inexplicably exhilarating. It’s more exciting than riding in the Mi-8 as gazelles spring across the grass. It beats galloping on horses at Hamid’s. It’s even more inspiring than the prospect of meeting Mongolia’s president in a few days, when he will offer us tea and cheese curds in a splendid room of white leather couches. A few months later, the travelers will make significant contributions, which, when combined with other donations, will allow the Nature Conservancy to open offices in Mongolia.  ACCESS Most flights from the U.S. to Mongolia (which start around $1,500) pass through Beijing or Seoul. If you’re transferring through Beijing, you’ll need a double-entry Chinese visa—even if you never leave the airport. Companies like Travel Document Systems (Read more... On our last night, it becomes clear what’s in danger. It’s not just the steppe and the gazelles, or the horses and the glory of Genghis, that’s at stake; it’s the people, these timeless “barbarians” whose brush with Europe in the 14th century arguably brought about the Renaissance. The earth under their feet is as much their family as it is their home. That evening our Mongolian guides show us hospitality unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. The cooks load our table with roasted chickens, dried sausages, and green salads. The Kharkorum beer flows until someone opens a bottle of Mongolian vodka. Then the singing begins. Each of our guides takes a turn belting a few lines before the rest chime in. Everyone knows all of the words, just as they have for centuries. Their rich voices blend into one baritone that wafts across the grasslands. The melodies are haunting and gorgeous, and I beg a guide to translate. They sing of birds and horses and sage-queen princesses. Elbegdorj, a rotund guide in a trilby hat, stands for his turn. The flower grows in the moonlight, and I will remember your wind-burned face. Outside, the stars have splattered purple light across the steppe. The white moon of the east will sing the entire night, and I, my dear, will stay with you my whole life. Elbegdorj looks at no one. He is singing for the grass. Comments (0)
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