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Published: November 14th 2006
Pungar & Gzee Jzuu
Day one, hence the smiles!!Its Monday afternoon as i start typing this. And please quote me on this one..... I NEVER WANT TO GET ON ANOTHER CAMEL AS LONG AS I LIVE!
Jokes aside we've had a really funny 3 days on our camel safari, let me start from the beginning...
We got picked up by Jeep on Saturday morning and drove for about an hour into the desert, til we met Daniel - our camel guide and desert resident who was accompanied by our two camels. Mine was called Pungar, and Jo's was called Gzee Jzuu. I would like to say that over the following three days i built up some kind of rapport with Pungar, but I would say that we had a bit of a love/hate relationship from the start. He loved slamming his big old hooves down and whacking my arse off the sadle, loved dragging me through the prickliest bushes going, and I, simply hated him.
Another annoying factor of the safari was the amount of flies that gathered around the camels, wrapping our scarves around our heads made it a little less annoying as they didnt buzz quite so close to our ears, but they were
Desert Children
The boy at the front in the white was adorable!! so relentless, millions of the little buggers resting on every part of your body!
The desert in parts was not as we expected- miles and miles of untouched sand dunes- there were plenty of these, but a lot of the land was simply baron and filled with desert bushes,or farmers crops. There were also a few villages that we passed through, and on Saturday when we stopped for lunch, we met a group of incredibly sweet local children. They hid for the first hour, about 4 of them, gawping at us with open mouths like we had just stepped off of a space ship, but as time passed (Daniel said we had to stop riding during early afternoon as it was too hot to be under the sun, clearly this man does not know about my Mediteranean skin tone) the children got braver and edged closer and closer. Over the next few hours they had danced and sung for us and the group had grown to about 12 children. By now I had taken a million pictures of them, they were absolutely fascinated by my digital camera and kept coming back asking for more pictures!(I am printing the pics
off for them as I dont think they must actually own a photo of themselves!) Between us we couldn't communicate as these kids did not speak a word of English, desert kids dont go to school, and my Hindi is still in its early stages!! After lunch, we then rode for another couple of hours until we found our sand dune for the night. Here we set up camp- dont get too impressed, camp consisted of a sheet to lie on and a blanket on top. Now although this may sound romantic, imagine sand that is hard and lumpy, a MILLION mutant beetles everywhere and even though we were in the desert, night times were pretty dam cold.
Daniel, I dont think must have seen anything like us before in his life. SCreeching hysterically everytime a beetle came near us, then flicking them away with our flip flops! We did get our come uppence when Jo broke the legs off one, and i threw one in the camp fire! By the second night we devised a game to conquer our fear, consisting of a series of circle rings around our beds, lines drawn with our flip flops in the
sand, the circle furthest away you hit the beetle with your flip flop you got higher points!
When it came to getting ready for bed, I actually have to thank Virgin for their 'complimentary' flight blanket, and amenity packs! The ear plugs went in our ears so no bugs could climb in, we wrapped our scarves literally around our whole heads, with the eye mask on top, no so bugs could climb in our mouths, our trousers were tucked securely into the illuminous yellow flight socks, and we piled on every top we had tucked into our trousers leaving absolutely no flesh uncovered! I honestly think Daniel thought we were crazy. We had hoped some other people would be on the tour with us, and when we booked three other people had been intending to come, but one lad was hit badly with food poisoning after eating food from a street vendor, and had to be urgently rushed to a bigger hospital in a different town after blood started pouring from his nose and mouth, so yet again it was just Jo and I!!! (the boy is ok now we checked, but i guess there's a lesson there)
Meal times were superb, we havent been eating a lot at all since we arrived, simply because of the heat, but now thanks to three hearty meals a day we're constantly starving! Daniel would start up a fire wherever we stopped and cook up a feast of treats, breakfast would be toast with jam, biscuits, fruit and Chai, which is Indian tea, we had it with lemon (the first day he made it with ginger and i had to slyly pour it on a plant, i think he noticed cos he never made it with ginger again!), lunch was normally a vegetable stew and freshly made Chipatti, and dinner was pretty similar with a potato and veg curry, chilli and Chapatti followed by fruit. We ate like kings! But not great when the desert is your toilet!
As we lay down to sleep on our first night, the thought crossed my mind that maybe we shouldn't have been so quick to snigger behind Simone's back as she booked her camel safari with a luxury air conditioned tent. Who's laughing now hey!
Jo by this point was near tears as she thought we'd made a wrong decision and
vowed she wouldnt sleep as she was so scared. From the beginning of this trip, all i have heard her talk about was this god damed camel safari, i tried to calm her nerves, i look over two minutes later and she is actually soundo!!! I barely slept a wink that night, but was still relaxing in a wierd way just lying back and watching the shooting stars!
The following morning we woke with pains everywhere, every muscle in our body was aching, and the hard sand had done nothing to ease the discomfort. When we mounted the camels again we were both ready to cry. By the time we stopped for lunch about 3-4 hours later and plotted under a huge shady tree we were both strongly debating phoning Del Boy to come and pick us up. We decided to think it over while we ate lunch, and by the time we were ready to go again I had had a change of heart and wanted to stick it out but Jo was still convinced she wanted to go, so we had a game of paper scissors stone. I won! (of course)
The next two hour ride, i wished i had listened to Jo. Every move Pungar made was hell, the only thing keeping me going was the fabulous tan we were catching up there! (although mostly on my right hand side so the next few pics may be in profile til my left catches up!)
This night we literally ate our dinner and tucked ourselves up for bed again, counting the hours til we went home.
The last leg of our safari, on Monday morning was without a doubt the worst. It was only a 2 hour ride but i felt every single second of it. Jo cracked up when i told her i had been seriously contemplating throwing myself off the camel so that the jeep would have to collect us from there, i didnt care how many bones i broke! Eventually Daniel must have felt the Garvey glare burning a hole through his head, and the constant whimpering noises i was making (it didnt help that the camel he was riding had wind and every time i breathed i got a lung full of that billious odour) and he asked me if i would like to walk the rest of the way!! Jackpot, never been so happy!
We eventually made it to the jeep pickup point, and barely said a word to the 2 men who picked us up on our hour journey home. Both of our faces like thunder. By the time we got back to the fort, you have to walk through, every single person we passed asking 'How was your Safari?' we were ready for murder! We got back in our rooms and threw ourselves in the beds, neither of us speaking for about half an hour til we collapsed into giggles about how miserable we both were!
Never before has a shower felt so good. We had been stuck in the exact same clothes for the whole 3 days and we actually stank! No wonder the flies had been gathering around us we virtually did smell of camel poo!
Following our showers we took one last walk through Jaisalmer and then caught our bus to bring us down to Udaiper. (a 14 hour journey!!) we treated ourselves to a sleeper cabin this time which are literally like a double bed on the second deck, all divided into private cabins, the journey passed really quickly and we arrived here in Udaiper in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Planning on spending 3-4 relaxing days here to recover from our trauma, massages are already booked!
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Jezza
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Oh my god Caitirioinia - enjoy your rest! I remember the camels in Mombasa - they stunk SO bad! How did you get through it? Feeling your pain! Have a good few days! Watching Paul O'Grady after a hard day First Aid training. Will have a second cup of tea just for you! Hold the ginger! XX Love ya XX