Eye of the Tiger (Jaisalmer, India)

I just returned from my 3 day camel safari yesterday. Overall it was quite an experience. Not one that I'll probably ever do again, gratefully.

What do you see in the Thar Desert?

Well, not a whole lot. I was actually expecting to see only sand for 3 days, but that was a misconception on my part. There was actually lots of different bushes and small plants. The cacti was in large clumps, not individually placed. We only came across Sand Dunes a few times, but its was so neat to see them! There was lots of different terrain as we went along, sometimes a bit of grass, sometimes rocks, hills, etc. No matter where we went, there was always shit piles everywhere, not tonnes, but enought to know that the camels have definitley done this route before. Not to mention... cows.

Its so cool to walk in the sand and make fresh footprints along the ripples from the wind. I took a picture with my own footprints, maybe I'll frame it with the famous poem printed beside it! (Kidding)

Yesterday we saw a lake where the camels were fed, that came out of nowhere. They only drank for like 3 minutes, I thought they'd drink for like 30 minutes! Man, I keep getting everything wrong!

Hey, where'd you come from?

Once again, I had this notion that we wouldn't see anybody in the desert, but for some reason, we kept seeing people cutting up fire wood, or sheep/cow herders (there was a young Indian boy with like 30 sheep, I thought of Santiago from "The Alchemist"), a few young boys playing in the sand. The thing is, there's no houses or huts or anything around. Maybe they were just a figment of my imagination!

The best one of all to appear was on our first night; we'd been riding for a couple of hours with no break and finally arrived to the sand dune where we'd set up camp. The 5 of us went for a walk around the sand and were sitting at one spot. Out of nowhere, this man comes walking towards us. He's wearing a long white outfit with a white cap on his head (he's Muslim) and a plaid scarf around his body. Around his shoulder he's got a large bag, inside was semi-cold pop and beer! Me and one of the guys got a beer each and watched the sunset go down. This is the first drink I've had since getting trashed in Ko Phi Phi. It was so relaxing and enjoyable. A little uncalled for, who expected to have a vendor selling drinks in the desert, but who cares.

Spoiled

Okay, if you've seen the movie City Slickers, the 3 characters are forced to do everything by themselves; cook, herd cattle, saves lives, give birth to a baby calf, etc. Well, I was hoping that we'd have to do some of that ourselve, but for the 5 of us travellers, there were 5 guides/workers that came along. They did EVERYTHING for us except wipe our asses when we took a dump in the sand.

They cooked good lunch/dinners! Mostly just veggies and rice or chapatis, but it was still good. They washed all the dishes, by using sand as a scrubber and water to rinse. Made nice warm fires. They always saddled the camels, like three times daily and fed them. At night they even tucked us into bed!

What's there to do out there?

Luckily I was with a good group. A Scottish couple, Jenny and Paul, who kept us laughing with their sarcastic attitudes towards themselves. They once travelled from Scotland to Indonesia without getting on a plane. So they know that they have to argue every now and again in order to keep sane, but its entertainment for us. Dave, a parole officer from Kingston, Ontario. He's funny too, just the way that he always makes fun of us and tells silly jokes. And Jolyn, a girl who grew up on a farm in B.C. She was good company to have around when I just wanted to talk about life.

When we'd have free time and not sitting on the camels (I mostly listened to my discman while riding, good call to bring it!), we would play cards or just play like good old camping games. Read our books and just tell stories of our own. I think the trip would have been different if we didn't have a good group.

Tiger and Friends

Tiger was the name of my camel. He had this weird tumor like bump on his neck. I figured out though that its for extra food storage. None of the other camels had it, so I guess that Tiger is special. Other than the camels slobbering, farting, pooing, peeing and make really weird noises, I'd say they're pretty cool animals. I love the way their legs move around and how they sit. When they eat, it is really neat to watch their mouths move around.

There was one camel that was sick or something and he kept having little outbreaks. Once I was being dragged behind him (the person in front carries my rope, Tiger was slow at times) and he went all wild. He started like screaming and huffing, the rider gave me my rope quickly and then the camel took off in a crazy rush. I'm surprised the rider didn't fall off! I'm glad that I wasn't taken along for the ride. I didn't even like the regular trotting, for one it made my ass really soar, secondly it was sometimes too fast for me to handle.

Pain.

Well, obviously I was expecting to be a little soar after the whole thing, but man, I can't believe what muscles are in pain. I figured it would only be my poor butt that would suffering, that was a naive thought. Don't get me wrong my ass is definitley soar, but so is my lower and upper back, my shoulders, my abs, my inner thighs and my upper chest. I think my preconception of only getting a soar ass, made me tense the rest of my body during the whole ride in order to prevent my ass from really riding the saddle that much.

Those little pricks!

I lived in Texas when I was 5 years old and attended kindergarten there. I really don't remember much of my whole year though. One thing that always sticks out in my head though is that all over the land there'd be these little round prickly things on the ground, the size of like a pebble. They were annoying and hurt you if got it on your bare skin. My sister and I used to try and find them and put them in other kids' hair, just to be mean.

Well, I think that Karma has kicked in and those kids just got their revenge. They were everywhere!