Day 3 Camping night

Day three riding the horses and we have a big day ahead of us. Riding about 40 kilometres to our next campsite. We left the town around 10 a.m. and slowly made our way to the countryside. The weather was looking dubious so we stopped and put on our wet weather gear. We trotted for about 15 minutes and walked for 15 minutes. Our plans had changed and now we were heading to one of the wranglers home to weather the storm. Once the rain had passed, we mounted up again and headed off. Because of the varying paces of the horses, Khan was trotting most of the time. After a few comfort stops, and stops because of off road buggies, we pulled up for our lunch stop. Once again the cook excelled with a delicous chicken curry and rice. 
At the end of lunch, the ladies all made a bee line for the forest before we mounted up for the next leg. We heard there was a local Nadaam festival near by so made a diversion to check it out. We arrived just in time to see the end of the 2yo horse race. Children aged between 4 and 11 were racing 2yo horses over a 7km track. A motorcycle leads the pack as there is no clearly defined course. Another part of the festival is the wrestling. This is the national sport and the pomp and ceremony surrounding the event is fascinating to watch. After a wrestler is defeated, the two wrestlers put theor arms aound the back of each other in acknowlegment before the victor is given a winners hat. The victor then goes to the side of the ring where he is given handsful of cheese cubes that he shares with the audience. Some footage on my youtube channel will show this in detail.  The kids also did a song and dance followed by a singing competition. Now dont take my word for this, because I dont speak Mongolian, and this is based on my observations.
This detour added a little distance to our day, and we eventually made our way to our final stop. With tents set up and dinner fairly late we got into our tents just before 10PM, and it was still fairly light. Just before I dozed off I heard the cows coming in to the farm  for the night. We rode a total of 43 km and our bodies are starting to adjust to the extended ride hours.

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