trippin’

The land of beautiful horses.

I managed to fulfill my childhood dream in September 2005, when I visited Mongolia and especially Hustai National Park. It is the home of the only truly wild horses.

Known as Takhi in Mongolia (Przewalski’s horse in the West), these dun-colored, black-maned horses are the only wild horses left in the world. Even the name tells how important these creatures are to Mongols, Takhi means “spirit”.

Sturdy, thick-necked and short-legged with zebra-like erect mane, they look way different than domestic horse or feral ones – runaways, you might say. The so-called wild horses in America and Australia, for example, are domestic horses gone wild.