Rajasthan Camel Safari – Day 2

Yes, sleeping in the fetal position on a camel cart is certainly a unique experience. But believe it or not, I was so exhausted, I slept like a desert log. The night was a flash of stars and sand with the echoing cries of kids… that would be goat kids. Somewhere around 6 AM, I pulled myself up on that cart and glanced around. One of our guides had evidently slept through the night on a large water can, lying bent over backwards like some very lost circus contortionist. I could not believe that he had actually slept in such a bizarre position. I lay there waiting to see if he was still breathing – yes, still alive.

Eventually, our guides both got up and made a tasty breakfast including a kind of thick chapati coated with caramelized sugar along with a fresh goat milk chai. Delicious. We packed up, mounted our camels, and bravely continued deeper into the desert. (After the storms, we were not sure whether we should continue. How many of these herders living in wigwams are there?)

Further into the desert, we saw very few people. Our guides led us along an interconnecting series of ridges always trying to keep the panoramic views. Occasionally we would dip down into valleys and cross to distant ridges, the terrain varying the entire time from flat pans, to forested scrub, to dunes. All morning we saw gazelles darting in and out of the bushes and peacocks in the trees. (The peacocks in this dry terrain just blow my mind.) A variety of colorful desert birds shot in and out of the thorny limbs, at times it seemed like they were actually following us as we rode.

If they are well trained, camels are relatively easy to ride. In fact, I would say it is much easier than riding a horse. They tend to keep walking forward until you signal them to change – there is rarely a fight. However, along one specific ridge, the bushes were full of small green bulbs, which might be best described as camel caviar. They just couldn’t pass it up. Thomas and I struggled, yelled, yanked on the reigns, kicked their sides, whipped them, and cussed. But they just kept nibbling. With much effort, we made our way out of the area and continued on, more successfully, until lunch.

Once again, we chose a high dune to sit out the desert heat. A 360 degree view without any human development: no power lines, no villages, no herder’s huts. It was exactly what I had hoped for when organizing the trip (although I will admit it was hotter than hell). Magnificent isolation, a true luxury in India.

And then, sometime around 1 o’clock, we could see a person far in the distance walking toward us. He walked and walked and walked; the whole time, we wondered who was coming. Eventually, he climbed up our dune, plopped down next to us, and stared in pure delight. Apparently, he was walking some massive distance across the desert and had noticed us up on the dune. Eager to stare at the foreigners, he had taken a small detour for a little afternoon entertainment to break up the desert monotony. He stared, and gawked, and asked for some water, and then stared and gawked some more. After a couple hours of watching us, he had had his fill, so he continued on his way. That’s India.

Once the midday heat started to die down, we loaded up and proceeded across a huge plain of scrub towards some dunes in the distance. We rode for several hours, sometimes galloping for fun. Galloping on a camel is more comfortable to me than galloping on a horse. Somehow the camel seems to bounce and sway less when it is moving quickly, although it’s not at all easy to keep a camel running. They sprint for 10 to 20 seconds and then slow down again. It never lasts long. We also crossed through a few more areas full of camel caviar, which slowed us down. This time, I noticed the guides were also fighting to keep moving.

On the far side of the vast plain, we approached a huge sweep of dunes, eventually working our way up on to a long ridge of sand. The sun was starting to set and there were wisps of clouds streaking the sky – I was hoping for a spectacular sunset. The ridge steepened and narrowed into a kind of bridge of sand connecting to a larger, flatter dune face on the opposite side. The guides passed across the narrow stretch of sand without any problems and continued on to the flat, table-like dune. My camel, followed closely by Thomas’, tread carefully on to the thin bridge of sand – when suddenly, the dune gave and my camel slipped.

From my perspective, which is almost comical, the whole thing seemed to happen in super-slow motion. I could see the steep dune break away and slip out from beneath the camel’s feet. The camel lunged forward, and at the same time, inward towards the dune, trying to catch his balance. The jolt threw me in towards the dune, but I caught on to the side of the saddle and hung there awkwardly, making it even harder for the camel to regain his balance. Now hanging sideways off the camel, big wobbly bony legs seemed to be flying all around my head searching for stability, and the struggle to maintain balance was causing the sand to break and slide even faster than before. So, I made a quick decision: to drop backwards off the camel.

I only had a second to make the decision. I was afraid that the camel was going to slip further and roll down the side of the steep dune taking me with him. I also knew that dropping off the camel would probably allow him to regain balance. With only a split second to act, I saw there were no rocks below me, so I dropped. It turns out that falling off a camel is very different from falling off a horse – it is MUCH further! The fall was longer and harder than I had anticipated and the impact was fully on my upper back. (Luckily, not my neck or head.) I landed among the camel’s legs, and, pumped up on adrenaline, I threw myself out from under the camel. Only then did I realize that I had really hurt myself.

As we were in the middle of the desert and the sun was setting, we really did not have many options. I did not know if I had broken, or more likely, fractured anything, but we had to keep moving to make it to the campsite before dark. Thomas and the guides got me back on my camel and took me to a flatter area among the dunes, where they set up camp. They laid me out on the sand to rest and I lay there for at least twenty minutes before I got up and started walking around experimentally testing the pain.

I was right about the sunset, it was beautiful. The streaks of clouds went pink and high up above the desert valleys, the panorama was breathtaking – not that I had much breath left to take. I oohed and ahhed appropriately and pretended to be OK, but my back really hurt and I was not sure if I had really injured myself, or not. After eating a quick dinner, I drifted off to sleep thinking that the worst pain I would experience that night would be my back. Unfortunately for me, I was wrong.

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