Love Thy Camel
Gangia! Himm Himmm HIMMMMM! Chch chch chchchchc. Gangia Comeon! ChiHAHHH, HIMMMMM. Pwwwii Pwwwwif Pwii Pwii Pwwi Pwii Pwii Pwuwa. My beast kicks into a canter but Im trying to clip Gangia into a trot. The bumpy canter is banging my manliness around too much. I think I know where George Lucas got his idea for the Tauntaun. Pwwwii Pwwwwif Pwii Pwii Pwwi Pwii Pwii Pwuwa, Gangia snorts. A little whack with my short reigns gets my message across more clearly. His afterburners kick in when he senses Gareth’s camel coming up behind. Gangia likes to play lead. Whooohoo lalalalalalalaaa!! We make some stupid war cry sounds that probably make no sense in the desert, but we dont care. We push into the heavier sands of the dunes - yeah, now we’re riding camels!
Bow legged, we dismounted. The Thar Desert’s landscape isn’t of Sahara’s golden sand variety, but harder and flatter, sometimes sandy, sometimes rocky. Definately dry. Barren. But not uniform either. Not dull. Colour is injected by the flowering clumpy cactus. Not the type of cartoon cactus on Roadrunner though. Still, true to our romantic ideas of the desert we set up camp in some dunes. We sent the boys to collect wood for a fire. We climbed the dunes to watch the big sun sink accross rolling dune hills. Back at camp the camel men had unsaddled the camels and cooked up a curry, chapati and chai - a staple fo the next 3 days. We ate, and then the rum came out…
The sun gets up pretty quickly here and reminds you of the night before. We have to start early because things soon heat up on the plains. We dont ride in the middle of the day. My turban looks like it had a bad nights sleep as well. Believe it or not, its a 9 metre length of material which again, believe it or not, actually keeps the head cool. I don’t look so much the Rajput warrior today because I tied it myself without a mirror. It looks like a head bandage. Like I fell off my camel or something.
The desert isn’t deserted. Deer twitch and bounce away when they see you advancing, wild peacocks streak accross the sand and Kites circle on the geotherms above. Tracks in the dunes suggest lizards were out last night. There are small herds of livestock too, that seemingly just wanders where they please. Alpaca, goats, donkeys and other camels. A small village of just a few dwellings is nearby. Thats where we stop for water for the camels. Twice we got to these watering holes and they were dry. The village kids come running out to meet us. They’d be really cute if they didn’t ask for rupees. The houses are made out of the materials available - namely cow shit mixed with a binder and made into bricks. Dung is a good fuel too. Women collect it and press it into patties. We sat down with a few of the village men who retied our turbans and had a laugh. With the sun higher now, my thoughts wandered ahead of me, lulled into a meditative space by the rolling motion of my camels plod.
With the temperature nudging 40 we stopped for relief from the midday sun. In a months time it will be touching 50. A massive Vulture looked too big for the tree it was sitting in. Our camels were pretty relaxed around us, they just shat and farted as they pleased. They are always chewing something, probably the same hay over and over. Their bushy Maybeline lashes continually bat away flys hanging around to fester. Its not all smooth riding with a camel, literally and figuratively. Your arse and inner thighs get sore, and the camels have their own personalities. I got on pretty well with Gangia. By the end he ran when I said ‘HIMMMM’, but stubornly wouldn’t sit when I commanded ‘CHITT’. A camel sitting is a lurching, mechanical kind of action that threatens to send you over its head before its legs and body fold up compactly like a Transformer.
We slept in the dunes again on day 2, disapointingly in the vicinity of a few other camel groups that slightly blew our sense of isolation. But as our guides would say ‘No chapati no chai, no women no cry’, ‘full power 24 hour, no toilet no shower’. Our plans to sack the other camps like true Rajputs never materialised as the rum came out again.
Come sunset day three we had looped back around to where the jeeps waited to drive us the hour back to Jaisalmer. By butt had leathered up and my legs stretched out and I wished a little I had a few more days out there. A few others felt the same, a few more had had enough. A shower was waiting in Jaisalmer, and pizza too with our camel mates.
I woke up early the next day, still running on camel time. I missed my camel. They’re smelly, grunting, ungainly beasts, but you’ve got to look past all that superficial stuff right? I mean, try ‘Love thy Camel’ as a commandment. If you can love a camel you can love anyone. I think I almost did.
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