The Ali Baba One

---

What exactly is a camel safari?
Take 4 Western travelers, 2 from Spain 2 from the USA. Put the travelers on top of one of the world's most stubborn animals, the camel. Bring in one guide, a local villager who has spent his entire life in the Great Thar Desert. Spend the next two days riding across the desert on camelback stopping at remote villages without electricity, napping under trees to beat off the daytime heat, and sleeping on a sand dune under the stars. Finish the journey with a newfound appreciation for the starkness of desert life, and enjoy your first bottle of chilled water like never before when you arrive back in town.

After leaving the sick room in Jaipur, Caroline and I spent the next five days in Pushkar, a Hindu pilgrimmage town, eating, relaxing and recuperating. I met some very interesting, albeit slightly shady characters in Pushkar, and spent most of my time there sitting in cafes chatting to Indians and locals alike.
From Pushkar we headed to Jaisalmer a few days ago.

Jaisalmer is the only real city in the middle of the Great Thar Desert, a vast barren expanse straddling the border between India and Pakistan. The city itself has a historic fort that's worth a day's exploration, but the real draw for most people are the camel safaris into the surrounding desert. These camel treks can last anywhere from a single afternoon to an entire month, but given our time constraints we decided to take a two day safari. Our other reason for taking a shorter safari is that it has been really hot here. Really really hot. The day we arrived in Jaisalmer it was 43 C, or about 110 degrees Fahrenheit. In this heat all you can really think about is finding some shade and sleeping in it until the sun gets lower in the sky. So a couple days ago we set off into the hot barren desert on camel not knowing what to expect. We were given free turbans to wear, which were absolutely amazing. I can't see myself ever wearing one back home, but nothing is better than a turban on a hot summer day in the desert.

The desert scenery itself was stunning, and I would love to go back and take a longer safari at a cooler time of year. Riding the camel itself is nothing like riding a horse - its much more uncomfortable - but nothing that a little yoga at the end of the day can't take care of. And the desert people were absolutely amazing - they live tougher lives than almost anyone else I've met and I could easily write for hours about some of the people who live out there. Most of the local inhabitants used to be farmers, but now that it hasn't rained for ten years all of the wells have dried up and the livestock have died. Being mostly illiterate the desert dwellers can't go to the cities to look for work, because most of those jobs require formal education. As a result people have banded together in large groups in the few places where there still is water left. They cut rocks into bricks, tend the few animals that are still alive, and basically do anything they can to survive.

Tomorrow we will be leaving the desert, to begin to head back to Mumbai. Caroline flies back home in less than a week, after which I will head to the Himalaya in Nepal to do some serious trekking. As much as I enjoyed the camel safari I can't wait to get up to the mountains, which I have been looking forward to visitng the most.


P.S. I have been waiting for almost two hours for a handful of photos to upload - so I will try to upload them next time in a photo update.

---