Review and outlook...

Horses and wide landscapes have always fascinated me. I live my love for horses every day. At the moment, I own a wonderful mare, a Connemara pony named Liah.

For almost 23 years, I traveled the world as a flight attendant for Lufthansa. I loved it very much and it helped me satisfy my wanderlust. However, a car accident abruptly ended this exciting life. After 3 years of reorientation (including 19 weeks of rehab, 5 weeks in the hospital), selling my house, moving, and starting anew, it was finally time to travel again.

In 2017, I had the opportunity to travel to Mongolia with the German Equestrian Federation. A 12-day tour gave me a first impression and I was immediately captivated. Especially the Hustai National Park fascinated me. I still had the television images from the early 90s in my mind, when the first Przewalski's horses were reintroduced to their natural environment and habitat. Now I was there myself and could photograph these beautiful animals! I quickly felt that this would not be the last time...

And so it happened - in September 2018, I traveled to Mongolia again, but this time the sole destination was the Hustai National Park.

For 3 weeks, I volunteered as an eco-volunteer, collecting data by observing the herds daily, taking temperature measurements, documenting the feeding, resting, wandering, and mating behavior of the animals, and more. It was an exciting time! I was able to observe other wonderful animals as well, including foxes, countless marmots, the (unfortunately endangered) Mongolian gazelle, red deer, eagles, and vultures...

I stayed at the camp in Hustai Park, where a friend and I lived in a Ger (known as a yurt to us). In the evenings, we made fires because it got very cold at night. The camp team cooked delicious meals for us and we always enjoyed a tasty beer after work. Occasionally, we went out with the rangers to track down poachers, which almost always succeeded... We were supervised by a wonderful woman named Naraa - she is an ecologist and responsible for the eco-volunteers.

Time passed by too quickly and in a flash, I was back in Germany. What did I bring back with me???

Of course, the plan to return :-)

This time, I will travel by the Trans-Siberian Railway. It's happening on June 7th. I will fly to Moscow and board the train to Irkutsk on June 8th. The journey there will take four days, until June 12th. It has now become clear that upon arrival in Irkutsk, I will immediately continue to Bugul'deyka, where I will spend three days at the eastories farm. It is a family-run, ecologically managed farm that practices sustainable tourism. Then, on June 16th, I will continue by train to Ulan Bator (another 22-hour journey), where I will be picked up by staff from the Hustai National Park on June 17th. I will have 9 days to help again as an eco-volunteer. On June 27th, 2020, I will fly back.

Until then, I have to be patient. This time, I will embark on the journey completely alone, and I must say that it does not diminish my anticipation.