Camel Safari Day 1

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My day starts around 8am, when I force myself out of a rather comfortable bed so I can pack up my stuff. Marc, Marco and I are going to check-out of our rooms and store our packs in the office so that we don’t have to pay for a night that we aren’t actually sleeping here (although, we’re only paying Rs100 per night, which isn’t exactly a ton to begin with). Half an hour later, Marc and I have just received our breakfasts: cheese and tomato omelets with hashbrowns and lassis. It smells incredible and I can’t wait to dig in, but Marc is a little less excited than I am. In fact, he’s been chugging water for the last ten minutes and saying he doesn’t feel well. He takes about two bites and excuses himself from the table. Not a great sign and part of me is worried he’s not going to make it on the trip.

Marco appears while Marc is in his room and orders his own food. By the time it arrives, Marc is back upstairs feeling much better after throwing up about 3 times. Turns out he hasn’t been taking his anti-malaria pills the last couple of days and when he finally took one this morning on an empty stomach it freaked out his system. When he doesn’t touch his food I ask if he still wants it—because if he doesn’t I am all over it, that omelet was delicious—and he says not after having watched it come back up. Sweet! I grab the omelet and Marco takes the hashbrowns. Score.

Around 9:30 a silver jeep pulls up to the hotel and the three of us get in with a German girl who has been staying at the hostel. She’s definitely one of the stereotypical ‘white bums’ I’ve come across. Basically, she dresses in the crazy 60s clothing and harem pants that she thinks will impress the Indian people with her ‘authenticity’ and attempts to ‘accept their culture’ as her own; this basically means she likes baggy tie-dyed clothes and going days without showers or shaving. These people typically find a cheap hostel, make friends with the people working there, smoke pot, eat only in the hostel’s cafe, and put down roots for four or more days without wandering more than a mile away. These are the not-so-elusive white bums, whose goal to stay away from home for as long as possible rather than actually see the city they’re in. Obviously, the three of us think this chick is weird.

But on we go, with our hotel manager at the wheel driving insanely quickly and taking up both lanes half the time. We pass small villages where the brown buildings have white geometric designs painted on them; it seems like the designers are trying to make sure they didn’t blend in so well with the desert that you don’t see them. The women are definitely hard at work: carrying baskets and metal canisters of water on their heads; hanging laundry; cooking over an open fire; sweeping trash from their homes underneath the bushes outside. But from what I can tell the men are still squatting over their breakfasts and tea, eyeing the women and apparently working up the energy to stand.

After about an hour of driving, we stop alongside the road. Our camel driver is waiting with 4 camels lying down, saddles and supplies already attached to their backs. This is when we meet Babu and his ten year-old son, Aladdin (pronounced ala-deen), two cool guys who are always asking us if we want more food. Babu probably isn’t actually as old as he looks, but he’s got a haggard, wrinkly face from spending most of his life leading pasty, stingy tourists through an environment humans aren’t adapted to live in for very long, let alone try to prosper in. Our camels have one large hump on their backs and are loaded with what must be a hundred pounds of supplies each (once we add our own bags). The thin rope they’re led by is connected to a spiked bar through their nostrils, and in order to be able to look at mine I have to tell myself that I stopped feeling my own nose ring after a few weeks so I’m sure the camels are fine, too. I hope.

Marco mans up and is the first to attempt getting on a camel. On his first try he doesn’t quite lift his leg high enough to clear the saddle, but the second time he takes a step back and performs an awkward, pseudo-roundhouse kick and gets the job done. The camel’s back reaches to about my belly button, about the boys’ hips, so we’re all practically pulling our groin muscles as we fling our legs, in a very literal sense, over the back of our assigned ruminid. Our camels mock us again when they get on their feet: first the back legs straighten part of the way, pitching you forward to about a 45 degree angle, then the front legs fully extend so now you’re leaning back about 25 degrees, and finally the back legs are totally straight and you’re sitting level, looking ahead. The only two ways we have of keeping ourselves in the saddle are our thighs and hands; the former are squeezing the camel’s back until we get cramps and the latter are stacked on top of each other trying to hold on to the bridle. No stirrups, no reins, no straps, no nothing. Giddy up.

Apparently, Marco was given the lead camel because Babu just smacks his rump (the animal’s, not Marco’s), clicks his mouth a few times like you would with a horse and lets him start walking away. Marc’s dark brown camel falls into line next, but he’s being led by a shy friend of Aladdin’s. My camel takes up the rear and is led by Babu. After ten minutes I turn around, though, and realize I’m wrong; Aladdin’s camel is most definitely taking the rear—my camel’s rear, in fact. Aladdin’s animal is tied to my camel’s saddle so that they’re only a foot apart. How humiliating for the last camel. He must be the rookie.

This arrangement becomes a problem about half an hour into the trip, though. One moment I’m looking at the scrub bushes and colored rocks around me and the next minute my camel is being pulled sideways by the animal behind him struggling against the rope connecting them. Aladdin tries to control it, but his ride is extremely unhappy. I hear this bizarre noise, like barking and mooing mixed together, and realize it’s coming from Aladdin’s camel! Eventually, Babu comes over and unties him so my camel can run along and make up the small distance to the boys. And so for about 30 seconds I completely forget about everything else around me and I bounce and bump and slam down on the saddle as my lanky ride picks up to a run. When I turn around, though, it’s a bizarre sight as Aladdin’s camel goes into full-on freak out: barking/mooing, pulling backwards again Babu and dragging him a few steps off the track, swinging its head wildly in giant circles, baring its teeth, and practically kneeling on the ground to dig its feet in and fight.

There is no doubt in my mind Babu will be able to get it under control, but I admit I do get worried when he hooks the crazy camel back up to mine (I’m beginning to think mine is the lazy member of the family—he’s clucked at every few minutes to remind him to go faster). I distract myself by looking around, but the scenery isn’t quite what I had expected. I’d pictured large sand dunes, large stray cacti, and maybe some of those little guys in glittery robes from Spaceballs (“Dink dink! Dink-dink-dink dink dink dink!”). Instead, it’s practically flat, there are lots of scrub bushes scattered every 50 feet or so, and rocks of various colors—purple, pink, beige, khaki, orange—falling all over each other. You do come to large, barren areas where it’s sandy, though, and at those points the juxtaposition of an azure sky layered on the cappuccino-colored ground is quite pleasing. It’s pretty in its own way, but certainly not grand.

What is absolutely wonderful, though, is the time to just sit quietly and reflect. In Singapore there isn’t a ton of noise, but there is absolutely no silence. There is always some white noise in the background, be it a train passing, cars honking, the elevator dinging, someone’s radio/TV, a sudden rain storm, or other people talking. India is the same, times ten. Being in the desert, with no one in our group really saying anything because we’re riding single-file, I feel…calm. Relaxed. Tranquil, even. I listen to the wind, to my heart beat, to the camel breathing, and to the rhythmic plodding of feet. And all I do is look around, sweeping a 180 degree arc, occasionally noticing 3’ tall, intricately carved sandstone markers with filigrees and human figures on them. They turn my imagination on and I start fantasizing about caravans along the Spice Route: hundreds of camels loaded with gold, jewels, spices and fabric; large silk tents standing on the dunes and glowing in the moonlight; men with giant beards and curving swords. Oh the things these markers have seen!! I can’t believe I’m jealous of an inanimate object.

I’m happy to report that it’s not as hot as I was expecting. I wear jeans and a sweater until about 11, at which point I’m starting to ‘glow’; not sweat, cause I’m a girl, just glow. The jeans are especially heat-absorbing, but thankfully just a few minutes later Babu says we’re stopping to water the camels in a small village just ahead. He clucks and our camels do the reverse of the 3-point stand they made earlier. Somehow, it’s actually more difficult this time, and we’re holding on for life and pride as they drop. Watching the boys get off their camels is hilarious! Let’s just say it involves a bit of squatting and stretching as they try to ‘loosen their hips’. I’m feeling absolutely fine, but the boys take advantage of this, too, by making ridiculous accusations about my being ‘experienced with this sort of thing’. Hey, at least I’m not the one doing a static squat right now.

In the village, no one really tries to sell us anything; there’s the usual crowd of kids who come running up to ask us questions and one man simply asks if we’re hungry or thirsty. When we ask to see what he’s got, he unlocks a small shed (for lack of a better word) and pulls out a rather large bag of individually wrapped mints (I think) from an antique glass deli case. I predict the manufacturing date to be around 2002 and decide to pass. Aladdin’s friend must think that I just didn’t want the whole bag, because he oh-so-thoughtfully buys me a single sweet. It’s all I can do to wait until he turns his back so I can spit it out—think minty, rancid butter if you want to imagine the flavor—and cover it with sand. As we start to leave just a few minutes later, I take advantage of a low wall to change into my shorts. Thankfully, I thought to put Marco on guard patrol, because somehow a group of kids picks up on the fact that a white lady is taking her clothes off in an empty courtyard. Yeah, that’s exactly what I need to top off this vacation: a crowd of curious kids staring at my undies.  Unfortunately, this leaves Marc to his own devices; the next time we see him he's got a few 12 year-old girls trailing him and asking him questions.  I don't know how it happened, exactly, but when I turn around again the girls are literally hanging off of him.  I guess they didn't like the answers he was giving them.  Needless to say, Marco and I are lauhing our asses off.

Moving on, it’s a lot more of the same: bushes, rocks, Aladdin’s camel freaking out (but now Babu leaves him untied and leads him personally), and small hills that are actually more properly called mounds. Eventually, though, about an hour before we break for the day, we start to see trees frequently and the landscape becomes an equal mix of brown and green. It’s what I think the African savanna would look like during the dry season. Our destination, the dunes, lies just beyond this section of the desert, and there’s no doubt about when you’ve crossed from one to the other. There’s an invisible line of demarcation created by the edge of the thin forest, like a botanical 8 Mile Road dividing the desert.

And now, an hour later, we are in a wasteland so empty, it makes the post-apocalyptic world of Mad Max look lush.  When our camels climb the first dune, I anticipate seeing Lake Michigan on the other side and Marc half-expects to see the ocean, but all we see is sand and more sand. We’re both people that are drawn to the water and love the calming vista of topaz and emerald waves ebbing and flowing over an empty beach. In other words, we should have gone to Goa. Everything creates long shadows, as the sun is about to set so there are going to be some incredible photo opps.  Textures, people and details are definitely my preferred subjects when I'm taking pictures, although I love taking pictures of anything in nature so I would be happy to wander around taking photos all evening.  Wider view photos actually wouldn't be that impressive, anyway, because the dunes don't seem to stretch very far.  It's kind of disappointing: on the distant horizon in every direction you can see the scrubland and trees take back over and the land get flat again.  The three of us were honestly expecting it to be more...expansive, I guess.

Babu is going to start making dinner soon, but while he's unloading the camels and starting a fire to make the chipati and dahl, the boys and I are going for a walk.  The first thing I do is take my shoes off and let my feet sink into the warm, silky sand.  Oh dear god.  This feels incredible; I don't want to move.  I practically force Marc and Marco to take their shoes off because I want them to feel as good as I do right now.  And for a few seconds the three of us just stand there, looking like we have no feet, appreciating being barefoot almost as much as the feel of the sand.  Finally, we start walking, after being reassured by Babu that there's nothing lurking in the sand we should worry about being stung/bitten by. 

Ah, there again is the stereotypical view of the desert we paid Rs1400 for.  Rolling dunes--admittedly not very large, but still curvaceous--still resemble what they were hundreds of thousands of years ago: the bottom of a prehistoric ocean.  The small stripes made by waves of wind immediately remind me of Higgins Lake, and thus family, and thus home, and finally the approaching holiday.  And the sunset doesn't help: smoldering pink, purple and orange, the sun sinks behind the hills, taking away the only source of warmth.  Tonight is going to be COLD.  But right now I'm busy thinking about the people I love that are thousands of miles away, worried about me and possibly still confused about why I wanted to make this trip (especially alone) in the first place.  I wish I had an answer for them, but even I think my interest in India and desire to travel here came from left field either at the beginning of this year or the end of last year.

A girl can only sit and feel a bit sad for so long, though, before she needs to eat, so I ask the guys if we can turn around and go back for dinner.  We've actually walked quite a ways, having climbed about six dunes, and by the time we run down the last one--sinking into that luxurrrious sand up to our knees--Babu basically has it ready.  He's a very obliging cook, making more food than we need and keeping the spiciness low for Marc and I while cranking it up for Marco.  Each meal comes with some kind of potato/vegetable mix in a light sauce or dahl, served with as many pieces of chipati as we could possibly want.  Props to Babu: this is some of the best food I've had my entire time here in India!  He makes the chipati in a dish shaped like a wok and pressing the dough into the bottom.  It comes out thick, doughy, pleasantly chewy, and great for picking/mopping up what it's served with.  He makes us delicious fresh chai and gives us a large bottle of water so we're always hydrated.  And he asks us about five times at each meal if we want more, a great example of Indian generosity when it comes to food.  Another interesting note about dinner: a stray dog has found our little camp is hanging around about ten feet away, making it very clear that he would appreciate a little dinner himself.  Babu says we should ignore it, but being three dog people we cave and give it a few small hunks of chipati and veggie.

The sun has gone down while we're eating and the last of the light is draining from the sky.  As it starts to get dark, Aladdin and his friend go out and gather a large stack of sticks for a second fire.  They break apart whatever dead bushes they can find in the woodsy area a little ways away and create a large stack of branches next to the pit they've dug in the sand.  The dry wood burns extremely quickly, and every few minutes someone has to feed the fire another half-dozen sticks, but it creates a large flame and puts out a surprisingly large amount of heat.  Marc breaks out a bottle of rum we asked our hotel manager to get for us, and I pull out my knife to cut off the bottoms of our water bottles so we have makeshift tumblers.  We're not looking to get tipsy, we just wanted a nice drink to relax with and maybe warm our insides a bit.  As soon as we get a whif of the ridiculously cheap alcohol, though, we all know that we're going to go home with a pretty full bottle.  We offer some to Babu in an attempt to get rid of it, but he says as a Muslim he can't take any.  I think he's slightly uncomfortable with us drinking, but he doesn't complain and just says that it's not good for any person to become so intoxicated that they lose control.  Not exactly a subtle hint to not overdo it, but after experiencing the terrible burning taste of the rum we can safely promise him that we'll be fine. 

Marc starts to fall asleep soon, anyway, and the rest of us quickly tire of trying to keep the fire alive.  We wake him up and start gathering all of our things so we can move a few feet away to where Babu has laid out our mattresses.  Marc moves fastest and so is able to claim the one-person sleeping spot on the other side of a bush from where the larger, two-person "bed" that Marco and I will be using is.  I clean up as much as I can, using the flashlight on my cell phone to see what I'm doing since the fire has totally died out.  Marc and Marco have noticed all the stars that have come out and are raving about them, but to be honest it's still a paltry amount compared to what you can see at Higgins Lake, so I'm not as impressed as they are (or maybe I'm just more tired).  When I join Marco on our "mattress", actually two thin blankets laid out on the sand, I try to read for a little while, but I jolt awake about ten minutes later realizing my flashlight's still on and I have no idea what happened in the short section I just read.  This obviously isn't going to work and it's starting to get really cold, anyway, so I roll a bit closer to Marco and stupidly tell myself "Oh, this won't be so bad.  What an adventure!"  What an idiot...