Day 19 - Joanna

This morning we got up at 8 to pack our gear for the overnight camel safari we were going on later that afternoon. We were checked out by 9:15 and we put our packs into the hotel storage, keeping only our day packs, which held necessities such as warmer pants, jackets, toothbrushes, toilet paper, and a few blocks of chocolate. Then David and I went and hung out on the roof for a few hours while Mum, Dad and Megan went on some secret business (perhaps present shopping for a girl with fading pink hair whose birthday is in three days?). I wasted a lot of the hotels wifi while David went on Dad's iPad and started mucking round on photo booth, much to my irritation. The others returned to collect David and I, and we headed out to 1st Gate for lunch, a very nice rooftop resteraunt just down the road from our hotel. The time came for our camel safari guide to pick us up, and we all piled into his Jeep. Joining us was a lovely American woman named Samantha, who we learned was working in Vietnam as an English teacher. We made a few stops on the way to the beginning of the safari, first at a ghost towns ruins, and then at a local gypsy village. They delighted in showing us their homes and did henna patterns on me and Megan's hands. We moved on and continued driving out into the desert. Eventually we stopped pretty much in the middle of nowhere. There were a few houses nearby, but other than that it was just us and the camels we could see a hundred metres ahead. We left our day packs in the car, grabbed cameras and drinkbottles and waved goodbye to our driver, who we would see later that evening at the little camp.

We cautiously approached the camels and I watched as David was helped climb aboard his assigned mount by one of the men who would be leading the camels. A younger boy waved me towards a camel and gestured for me to hop on. They were sitting/lying down (I don't know how you would describe it) so I swung my leg over fairly easily. "Hold tight" the boy said to me and I quickly grabbed the handle in front of me that was part of the rather comfy saddle. Then he began pulling on the camel's lead, coaxing it to its feet. Suddenly it lurched upward, but only the front half! I went flying backwards but held tight and tried to lean forward with it. That backfired when it stood up on its back legs too, and I had to quickly shift my weight. Then I was suddenly very high up. Everyone else made it up okay, and we headed off. I discovered that it was a lot like horse riding and relaxed after a few minutes, enjoying the view of the desert, and the dunes in the distance. They didn't tell us the names of the camels so we decided to do that ourselves. Here are the names that we chose.

Mine - Saskia

David's - Sandy

Megan's - Bob

Dad's - Fred

Mum's - Sore Thighs

Megan was having an interesting time because Dad's camel was behind her and the camel didn't like not being in front, so he kept pushing forward and coming right up beside Megan, giving her a fright every time she turned her head. David was also warned that his camel was the jumping camel and he was advised to hold tight, just in case. We stopped briefly for firewood along the way but other than that it was a smooth journey. We arrived at our camp on the edge of the sand dunes in time to have a hot cup of chai and watch the sun set from the dunes. All was well, until we went down to the jeep to get our warmer clothes. I was just approaching the car, David right behind me, when he suddenly yells "SNAKE!" I immediately looked to where he was pointing and sure enough, a 1.5 metre long, yellow, red, black and white snake was slithering slowly towards the car. I'm not entirely sure about the colours, I didn't really stick around to double check. We all ran back up the hill slightly and made enough noise to attract our guides. They approached with a large stick and proceeded to hit it until it was dead, which was a relief, I never would have been able to sleep if they left it alive.

We were all a bit freaked out after that, especially since Mum had said that there wouldn't be any snakes in the desert. We asked the guide though and he said that was the first snake he had seen in the two years he had been doing the safari. Lucky us. We made a fire as it got dark to scare away any of its friends and sat around, just chatting with Samantha while the guides made dinner. They joined us after dinner and after we had shared the chocolate around they offered to play the water drum and dinner plates and sing a song or two. That was nice, until they asked us to sing some songs. We sang the Maori verse of the national anthem and Samantha sang the American national anthem. Then me and Megan attempted to do the cup song, playing the rhythm on the water drum and singing along, but it was quite difficult and we gave up after a while. Soon after we decided to go to bed, some of us going for a nice wee in the bushes before retiring to our mats on the sand, under the stars. We had two very thick blankets to keep us warm, and the guide was so cute, he tucked each of us in so that we were cocooned in the blankets. The moon was very bright but eventually everyone dropped off to sleep, for a while at least. I woke up later in the night to a weird snuffling noise nearby. Turns out there was a stray dog sniffing my head. When in India I guess...

Extra update from Andrew

The secret shopping trip referred to by Joanna included a trip to a fabric shop. This was more fun than it sounds. Megan and Heather got the shopkeeper to bring out every cushion cover, bedspread and wall hanging he had, we all had masala chai and there was enthusiastic but pretty half-hearted bargaining on both sides as the prices were pretty good.