Once we arrived at our Ger, we had to wait about an hour for our host family to return from getting supplies.

After brief introductions, we were whisked outside and thrown onto horses; sundown was approaching and our hosts wanted us to get a ride in before it got too dark.

I’m not sure I’d call Mongolian horses real horses. They were very short and stout and would fall more into the Pony Category in my opinion. These horses though, had incredibly long tails that brushed the ground behind their rear hooves (I’d never seen tails so long!).

We received fair warning from our guide Deegii – these weren’t your typical riding/show horses! They weren’t domesticated in the least and as such could be very unpredictable and dangerous.

Some members of the group had never ridden a horse before and needed a crash course in How-not-to-get-Bitten-Kicked-Bucked-off-or-Trampled-to-Death. It was a very uplifting and reassuring course for the newbies.

Murtaza was placed atop a black horse that Deegii described as, “crazy and wild and fast.” An interesting choice considering Murtaza had never ridden before.

Of the group, Lara and I were the only ones with extensive riding experience and everyone else seemed quite nervous to be riding wild horses. Frankly, I was nervous too, as it had been year since I took lessons.

I quickly fell back into the swing of things, although I felt like a giant on that tiny horse!

In my head, the horse was named Apricot because he’s an orangey color – very original, I know. We got along swimmingly at first, but Apricot turned out to be a complete ass-hole.

He kept trying to bite and start fights with the other horses. This dude could have been a cast-member on the Jersey Shore given his antics!

Lara’s horse suffered the brunt of Apricots wrath. We physically had to keep them separated so they wouldn’t bite and buck.

“Go” in Mongolian is “Cohcox!” (pronounced ch-ook!) and we yelled it in the deepest most assertive voices we could we could muster.

Lara and I attempted to get a gallop going, but the horses either didn’t have that much pick-up due to their midget status, or (more likely) they were just stubborn little punks.

Riding was a blast although, again, it was freezing. We kept switching the reigns from hand to hand – left hand held on, while the right got some relief in a coat pocket and vice versa.

After that evening ride (and following the camel riding debacle) I determined that my lovely gloves, purchased in Novosibirsk, Russia, were completely useless. You’d think that Russia (of all places) would have the whole “making gloves” thing down. Apparently not.