July 11, 2012
Cowboy Camp is a draw in Mongolia
By Jeremy Bergevin
North Americans long to lead simpler lives. They strike out for the unknown, carrying with them only the essentials for shelter and sustenance. Every year, they shrug offthe shackles of sophisticated living. They forsake the comforts of home for all the perils of the wild. They go camping, lying down to sleep under the star-lit sky.
When they do, that same sky is blue in Mongolia, where day is breaking over a million people. But for Mongolians, sleeping out is nothing new; camping is still an ordinary way of life for half the population. Shepherds sleep near their flocks in open fields, hundreds of miles from any town, as they have for a thousand years or more. Yurts—white, felt-lined tents—dot the landscape in this prairie country. A family of herders can ready a yurt and all its contents for travel in an hour or two.
Read the rest of the story on the alife website.