Camel Trekking Part 1

(I wrote this a month ago and haven't finished it, but it's getting long so I'll just put up the first part for now. The camel trek is one of the reasons I'm glad I went to Rajasthan. Also - green mustard curry.)

Part of our over-priced car rental was a free camel safari, which is a very touristy thing to do in the northwest of Rajahstan. I was looking forward to this, and not too worried since I figured if they deal with hysterical suburbanites and their sullen children then we probably won’t get thrown into too many thorn bushes. (Just the one.) Now that I’ve done some reading on the treks, I think we got very very lucky, not in where we stayed (scammer central), but in one of our camel drivers, The Smartest Camel Driver in the World. He must work for tips, and instead of being the smarmy annoying scammer that is all too common to the north, he’s gone with the be really nice and authentic style of tip-upping. Is it possible to start a school to train people in that style? Somebody needs to write that book. I feel like I need to track him down right now and give him more money, with everyone else I just want to go back and kick them in the butt. Derek’s camel guy was somewhat less impressive, a 15 year old who treated it much like your average teen would treat flipping burgers.


Khuhri is a small town outside of Jasailmer, located within a national park. The place we were at, The Desert Camp, has a group of thatched huts inside an enclosure for tourists to stay. They offered to show us around the village, which is all old-style mud homes with goats and cows wandering around, which of course ended with a sales pitch. Oh, won’t you help these poor people by buying these homemade blankets that take them many months to sew, you know, the ones you can buy in Canada for half the price that are made in Nepal. TTHHPTH.

There were two options with the camel ride, sleep out in the desert (a kilometre or so away) or come back and sleep in the hut. I chose the desert, so they piled on the heavy blankets and assured us they’d be bringing us dinner.

(My camel driver and his Camel, Lalu. When I went to take the photo he held up a hand and took his turban off and stuck it on Derek's head. This is when I realized he is the Smartest Camel Driver in the World.)

Riding a camel is a lot like riding a horse, if that horse was on pogo sticks. They lie down for you to climb on, and when they stand back up they stick their butt in the air, putting you at a nearly vertical angle. It's terrifying. It's also the only thing keeping you from telling them you want down, because you know the camel going to stick their butt in the air to do so. And there’s nothing to hold onto. At least on a horse you have that thought that if things get out of hand you can grip the horse’s neck. A camel’s neck is very far away, and long enough so that it can reach around and bite you, or perhaps spit in your face. Our camels were very nice though, and only stumbled occasionally.


They took us on a roundabout journey, a few hours through rocky land before hitting the sand dunes. We saw lots of antelope, some large Egyptian vultures, a desert fox that they chased for a bit, and, of course, goats and cows. I didn’t get many photos as that would have required loosening my death grip on the saddle. My camel driver, who sat behind me, only knew the few English words he needed to know, “okay?” “welcome”, and “okay, okay, many many tourist”.

(Camels have weird feet. I'd never really thought about it before. Also weird tails, they don't have a brush on the end, they have thick fur running down both sides so it looks like a big centipede growing out of their butt. Usually their tail is tied up by the tip to the saddle, I'm not sure why. Probably poop related.)

We set up camp in the dunes and wandered around barefoot. I tried to track some animals by their prints, but we could never figure out which direction they had gone. It’s just as well, turns out they were spider tracks. A very large spider. Some small local urchin showed up and tried to get Derek to give him his watch, then maybe 10 rupees? Pen? Rupees? Rupees? Rupees? And so on.


Our driver and a man from the resort showed up with our dinner in a large tiffin box set and stayed to chat for a while by the fire. It was a very good dinner, including small thin “desert beans” and fresh chapattis that my camel guy (I think his name was Acheze. It was very guttural. There are only so many times you can ask someone to repeat their name before you just smile and nod.) roasted for us on hot embers. They got to eat after us, which I found awkward. If we ate too much, they get less dinner, if we take too long, their dinner gets cold. Cultural difference between valuing a guest over not wanting to be a hassle, I suppose. After they washed up by rubbing everything down with sand, and a tired looking dog came by and licked the spot for a long time.


(to be cont...)