Today is our last drive in Mongolia. Leaving Ulaanbaatar we drove through the heavy city traffic to the main highway heading towards the Hustai National Park. This park is world famous for its successful reintroduction of the Przewalski's horse, the only living wild horse in the world called the Takhi roaming freely in their land origin again, thanks to the enormous effort of the Dutch who returned the first 15 takhis to Mongolia and released them into to the wild. Today there are now 353 in 34 breeding harems and more than 95% are born in Mongolia. This national park and its surrounding area has much to offer to nature lovers. After dinner we travelled with a national park guide deeper into the Takhis area. First we spotted several marmots and deer before coming across our first group of Takhis feeding on lush green grass by the river. We were told that we had to stay within 200 meters from these magnificent horses consisting of 1 stallion 4 mares and 2 foals, we all felt so privileged to have the opportunity to see these rare breed of horses roaming free.
The following morning we returned to Ulaanbaatar and visited the Dinosaur Museum which displays a variety of big and small dinosaur fossils. The most important and precious exhibit was the Tarbosaurus Bataan which was a carnivorous dinosaur from the Gobi Desert in southern Mongolia. The T.Bataar lived in Asia 70 million years ago and was 2.4 meters tall and 7.3 meters long. Another amazing exhibit was the fossilised dinosaur eggs which were found in Mongolia.
To celebrate our final evening in Mongolia we enjoyed a folk dance performance and another delicious meal. Tomorrow we have a few hours shopping to buy those last minute souvenirs and Kashmir which Mongolia is famous for, before heading to the airport and our flight home. Many thanks to Doogii our lovely guide who shared her knowledge, and introduced us to the Mongolian culture. This trip certainly lived up to everyone's expectation with many wonderful surprises along the way, especially the food, we all agreed it has been a gourmet food tour.
