Wednesday, November 1 Jaisalmer Camel Safari

A taxi picked us up for our camel safari, one of the things I have been looking forward to since I came to India. It’s touristy, but I love camels and I want to see endless sand dunes and little villages. We stopped first at a very ornate and embellished sandstone Jain temple overlooking a man-made lake, where priests covered their mouths to pray. A snake lives in the walls and will greet visitors, but it, like me, was tired. We were driven through the dusty dirt roads through the scrubland to a small outpost (meaning a single-standing one-room building), housing our Ships of the Desert. They are awesome animals, and are completely adapted to life in the desert. They can go for miles without water in the baking sun, and their feet are tough and wide enough for the sand dunes. They are huge animals. Their round feet are huge, and unlike horses they have bendy knees. These kind have a small bony hump, used for storing water and fat. They make a funny noise that reminds me of a Jurassic park animal. They look horrendously stupid moving their heads around on their long necks, with sleepy bug-eyes. The camels sat calmly chewing their cuds with their dirty ratty teeth, their bottom lip hanging down and flopping around with every bite. They sit really awkwardly, with their legs bent under their body, supporting their weight. The camels’ tails are like brooms, and swat at flies, seeming to painfully hit their little balls. They kept farting. The reins were connected to a piercing in their flat noses. They’re still one of my favorite animals. We hopped on the camels, which was scary at first because they get up on their knees first, and then fully stand up. We had to ride on huge saddles with lots of pads because they have a really bony hump, and we’re not used to all the jostling. Our two Muslim Rajasthani guides in turbans led us on a long walk through the barren scrubland, with nothing for miles except flat open plains, yellow dry dust, and thorny bushes. My camel kept running its head into Tara and sneezing on her, Tara’s camel kept farting, Luke’s camel refused to sit down, and Snehal and Nikhil’s camels had a peeing competition that lasted 15 minutes straight. The camels walked fine through the thorny dust, and they trotted, which hurt everyone’s butts. After 3 hours of trodding through the scrubby desert, we stopped for rest beneath the shade of a tree, and played cards while our guides cooked chapati and vegetables, using nearby sticks to start a fire (in the middle of a huge plain of dry grasses). The camels had their front legs tied together, so it looked like they were doing the moonwalk, as they hopped around . After a few hours and avoiding the heat of the day, we saddled back up. Each time we got back on the camels my ass hurt progressively more. Trotting was the worst, but we wanted to make the sand dunes before sunset. After stopping at a tiny town, we reached the place to camp on the edge of the vast Thar Desert. Two kids had to run to the next town just to get us soft drinks. The whole time, the only people I saw were three farmers, some stray kids that kept following us, a family on a camel cart, and a goat shepherd. Life would be hard out here in the desert, where goats outnumber people and water is so scarce that nothing seems to grow. It’s a far cry from the bustling metropolis of Mumbai or the fertile plains of Haryana. We set up camp on the first sand dunes we saw. The guides let the camels roam free, started dinner, and smoked bidis. We went exploring over the sand dunes. This is the first time I’ve ever seen anything like it. Big hills of nothing but sand stretched for miles. Nothing interrupted their rippling flow except the wind. It was so beautiful it looked like it should be a desktop pattern in Windows. A few thorny trees and grassy weeds sprang up here and there, and big black beetles and their little holes could be seen. Other than that, the dunes were completely barren and void of any life. It was completely silent and peaceful as the mild red sun was setting over the desert. We walked through the fine-grained sand, which felt good between our dirty toes. The dunes were like hills, and it was fun falling down the soft hills, that seemed to run like water. We had some rice, vegetables, and chapati for dinner in the dark. We set up the blankets on the soft (but somehow hard while trying to sleep) sand. We realized that prickly little thorns were stuck all in the blankets, so we had to blindly feel around screening for them. We were paranoid all night about beetles and scorpions, so we positioned all the blankets and saddles in a ring around us as we slept. It was so peaceful, and I slept like a baby under the stars. The bright moon came out, and as we were sleeping it gradually moved over, so we could see the beautiful bright stars. That’s the brightest I’ve seen the stars in a long time. There were thousands, small and big, and Orion’s belt and the big dipper were glaring. The brown, hazy Milky Way galaxy was visible, too.