And why were we thinking this way ? It was because we were about to head out into the Sahara desert on a desert adventure. We were very excited for 3 reasons:
a) we'd never been to a desert before, so this would be an important new chapter for The Friendly Planet Guide
b) we were going to stay out in the desert overnight in a temporary camp, and
c) we had a great mode of transport to get us there, and here it is - or rather, one of them ... (still trying to work out which one of us is the most handsome!)
We were travelling there in a camel train. There were 2 small trains of 3 camels each. We both elected to ride with our female minder and were very glad we had after our male minder's camel couldn't get his footing on a muddy stream bank and fell over, causing our minder to roll off into the mud. We were very relieved he wasn't hurt; once we'd established this, we had a good laugh!
It felt very strange camel riding. As the camel's head and neck went forwards and backwards so did we, and combine this with a bit of up and down, and we felt like we were describing circles as we rode.
Although we had our sleeping mats on top of the saddles, our minders found they had very sore bottoms after a while - not a problem bears suffer. They were therefore glad when the camp came into sight, and it was time to dismount ...
The camp was exclusively ours, and there was no-one else in sight and nothing to see but sand for miles. There was a white tent for our crew where they did the cooking, a black nomad style tent for the the tour group and, a sensible distance away, a toilet tent. As you can see from our next picture, that was all there was, apart from our camels - by now hobbled - and lots of sand.
There was time to explore before dinner - part 2 follows shortly.
Lots of love George and Yorkie xxx
2 comments:
In that 1st photo, George and the camel look the same size! Did they bring in special bear sized camels for you?
Glad to see the blue scarf being used in earnest.
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