2017 March 17th - March 18th, Jaisalmer, India 👍

Dateline: March 18th 2017,  Desert, Jaisalmer, India

The Perils of Camel trekking
The Route 
March 18th:

We arrive at the camel station (what else would you call it? Desert Central?). It's about an hour in our 4 x 4 from Jaisalmer. We only need the jeep, or Indian equivalent, for the last 2 Kms.

Everything is ready. I'm too busy refilling my water bottles to make sure I get a pretty one, so I end up as the last rider.

There's no messing about here. We are on our way in about 5 minutes.

Koplimae's of the desert (Thar to you)

 

This looks like a bit of a tourist thing (Duh!). We are in ones and twos. Each has a walker who holds the rope to lead the camel. No Lawrence of Arabia camel racing here I see.

The saddle, such as it is, is pretty uncomfortable. The "stirrups" are pieces of string of various length. No English saddles or anything remotely equestrian about this. Whats the camel equivalent of "equestrian" anyway?

I try a "Lawrence" by putting my leg up on the camels neck occasionally. It sort of works. We all agree that its better than riding an African Elephant.

Its 4:00PM when we start, the sun is way past its most vicious. We all gently amble in single ish line through lesser and lesser vegetation. Amazingly, out here in the toughest of environments, there are seeded fields (of what?), occasionally a hooded cobra, thorns and sand.

Heading off into the sunset with not a G&T in sight

Eventually, we arrive at the edge of a recognisable desert

Sand dunes, toilet bushes in situ, the works. There's even some bed frames for us wasted old timers (2 hours in a camel saddle can waste any neophyte camel rider)

The camels are bedded down for the night

Room with a view or what?

Dinner is prepared (As Bismark supposedly said, its like laws and sausages - don't watch it being made)

 You need a bog?
Just over the next rise, here's the shovel

And our beds are expertly made up. Very comfortable.- its all packed inside a waterproof canvas wrapper, and unwrapped.

 

Everything seems to be working out perfectly. The grub comes out, is consumed, the camp fire is lit. A joint is passed around, and horrors, ageism is apparent. Not a puff offered to us old farts! Hah! We could teach them a thing or two about "not inhaling", but desist.

We settle down for the night, just like the camels

There's even some Hindi chanting as the fire burns away. Complete with a water container as a makeshift rhythm section (don't ask)

Remember the "20% chance of rain"?

Well, there's a fair amount of lightening around until about 9:00, then the skies clear completely. I've seen better desert cloudless nights, but this is just about perfect in my super comfy bed. Never had this amount of luxury sleeping out in a desert before

After the sand storm. Another bad hair day

Of course, this all suddenly collapses about midnight as we wake up to a windstorm as it whips through our camp, followed, of course, by torrential rain. Yep, at least 2 cms of rain fell that night. It pisses down plus the sand of course gets blown everywhere. Yes, even there.

It really was pretty frightening. I lost my hat

The various hands are in a total panic. Eventually, all the beds and bedding is unceremoniously dumped into a central area, the tarps are slung over everyone, and to the accompaniment of howling winds and beating rain, we are sand blasted for an hour or so. 

Dawn finds us, eventually.

What a mess, camels and personal belongings blown to the 4 corners etc.

Chai is the order of the day.

 We share some form of camel herders breakfast
I ask for a water bottle refill and the herder sluices it with his hand
into my water bottle. Yep, I get the only shits of the trip

 

The cooks start their cooking, 

the camel guys look for camels, the various hands pack up our kit.

Breakfast is various grains, lots of hard boiled eggs and, yes more chai 

Definitely up with the dawn. 
The sand storm ended about 4AM

Most of our bits were recovered
(it was about 30 knot winds)

Various bushes are fertilised, and the journey home begins. This time we all get to drive our camels, not that it makes any difference. Mine anyway will only do what his herder tells him to

The view from the
top of a stupid camel

And were back to desert central - time to look for a beer

 

Kayla has had such a hard time trying to replicate "English" camel riding, and various bits have got really bent out of shape as it were; she travels the last bit in the Jeep.

Back in Jaisalmer post showers (we were really
dirty as you could see on the shower floor), a cafe for tea

Hardier souls (aka Bums), soldier on.

The owner drives us back and we all indulge in a really long shower (piles of sand left behind), a lunch as we wait for our afternoon train, a ticket is purchased to get Kayla up to Delhi for her flight to Kathmandu, and  we're ready for our train and late arrival at Jodhpur.. 

Actually, 11:30 before we crashed that night, but that's another blog entry

Toodles

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