Having reached Mongolia we are spending a free day in Olgiy before the 5 day off road stretch to Ulaanbaatar over the Northern Road.

We had the most interesting fun day ever. We visited an Eagle hunter in his Ger camp. The eagle hunter is really good and has received a number of medals in competitions. Unfortunately the hunter was not in but we had the opportunity to have the eagle sit on our arm and you cannot believe the strength in that birds claws. He was just holding on and you could image how much power he could exert when hunting. The hunters use the eagles to hunt wolves, 3 eagles can take down one wolf, incredible. He also weighed a lot more than I expected. It was really interesting to see him and get so close, we then had a small snack in the ger / yurt with the family of the hunter. Although we are in Mongolia the area is inhabited primarily by Kazakhstan families. The gers they live in are therefore Kaz gers which are bigger and far more decorative than the Mongolian ones, which we should see a lot off as we travel through Mongolia.

After the eagle we went into the mountains to shoot an AK47…well go figure, when in Mongolia I guess. That thing has quite a kick, but it was really  fun, I killed a mountain but my target survived 🙂

We also visited a stone man, this stone has been there sin e the 15^th century and marks the grave site of a hero, s well as the other people who are buried at the site who died during the same battle that the hero died.

After lunch we visited the local museum and the black market in Olgiy, a really interesting and fun day.