Up at 6:30, showered, packed, went upstairs for breakfast at 7:00. Hotel dude came and told me the Norway guy was very sick last night, he wouldn't be coming on the safari. I do have a recollection of hearing someone getting sick last night.
Went downstairs at 7:30, and off me and the hotel dude went in the hotel jeep. We stopped at a market for veggies, then stopped at a chicken store for freshly butchered chicken parts. Then we stopped outside of town at a cenotaph for a picture, then farther afield at a very nice Jain temple. Then farther away and started offroading, and stopped at an old man and a kid and two camels standing in the desert. This was it!
The desert man and the kid were very excited to see me. I got my own turban (which I got to keep at the end).
We left on the camels about 9:00am. We camelled until about 11:30, then stopped for lunch. Chai, chappati (flat bread cooked over an open flame), and super spicy veggies (too spicy for me).
It was flaming hot. Lunch stop was in the shade of some scrubby trees amid the arid landscape.
It's too hot to travel during midday, so after lunch, we just lounged in the (hot) shade, then we mounted Micheal and Janet Jackson (me and the kid on Michael, the older man on Janet) and continued on. This was perhaps 2:30.
It was too hot. I remember thinking I didn't know if I could do another day of this tomorrow.
My guide (Jien) is sooooooo nice. He speaks in broken english and looks after me like I'm a king. The boy (13 years old), Satar, is very friendly. They are both very happy to have me. Satar works on camel safari's with Jien to earn money for his family. His father cannot find work, he is the only one in the family who works. Jien (50 years old) works for another man, who owns about 20 camels (including our two). Jien doesn't own any camels himself, but would like to someday.
As we rode along, they would sing songs or humm.
We made a stop in a village for camel water, but it was dry. Jien has to pay to let the camels drink from the town camel water supply. He disappeard, to talk to someone, I guess, came back a few minutes later saying we had to make a small detour, into a small valley, where the gov't has dug a watering hole. The watering holes in town are a concrete circle, the walls perhaps 24 inches high. Water gets pumped into them. The watering hold in the valley was just a muddy hole in the ground.
In the town, the children would approach me and ask me for school pens. I didn't bring any, although I do remember dad remarking about that.
AFter our watering hole detour, we continued on.
I can't describe the heat. The bottled water gets HOT. Gross to drink. And the heat just zaps any energy you have. I'll take -40 over +40 any day...never again will I complain about our winters!
Finally made it to the sand dunes about...I dunno, 5:00 or 6:00, found a spot to dismount, I laid in the shade while Jien and Satar made an awesome supper, rice, chicken, veggies and chappati.
A German guy and his guide came to visit for a bit. He's on a three day safari.
After I ate, Jien offered to go to the nearest town and get "ice cold" beer (which was included in my tour) and whatever else I wanted. I ordered up two cokes and water...all the drinks we have with us are hot as hades. I gave him some money for the coke and water, he loaded up a camel and went off into the dusk.
Me and Satar made chappati, then Satar ate, and by the time he finished, it was dark. Satar and I pulled the food close to us, and sat on a blanket guarding the food from the hungry dogs, trying to get a scrap. Jien hadn't eaten yet. I had brought a flashlight with me, and all we could see was teh sillouette of the dogs.
Jien was gone for quite a while, over and hour (maybe 1.5 hours). But he finally returned, following the sound of Satar's voice, guiding him home.
The coke and beer was "air temperature"...not regrigerated, and the water was slightly cooled. Jien opened a beer for me (using his teeth...we had no bottle opener), and two cokes, one for me and one for Satar. I told Jien to eat, and he did. I told Jien to drink beer (I bought one for him), but he said not now, later. They sang traditional songs to me, then we headed up on to a sand dune, where they had laid out some blanets in the sand. Jien then disappeared again. I asked Satar if I was sleeping here, he said no, he would be making my bed for me. Jien returned carrying a bed on his back. Well, it was a cot. He put it down on the sand, Satar made my bed and I climbed in. They advised me to sleep with my pack and camera or else dogs might drag them off in the night.
The stars were amazing. We were only about 100km from the Pakistani border, they told me.
When we stop, they don't tie the camel's down at all. They tie a rope between their two front legs, so they can only take baby steps. The camels don't wander too far off, even over the course of the night.
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