Camel Safari

I've visited the dessert before, like the Black Rock Dessert in Nevada for Burning Man, and the mountain dessert of Wyoming last summer. I even visited a single massive sand dune on the beach of Muine in Japan. But I've never been to a vast region of sand dunes.

For that reason, I headed deep into Rajasthan, to the golden city of Jaiselmer, the closest point to the Thar Dessert on the border with Pakistan. I joined 3 Belgians, a Spaniard, and a woman from the Micronesian island of New Caldonia on a 5 day camel safari into the Thar.

By day we rode mainly through scrub dessert, but each afternoon we would reach a dune area to set up camp. Man, we were all like kids. The sand is so fine and soft, much more so than a beach. We ran around, threw the Frisbee, jumped, rolled, and cartwheeled down hills, played capture the flag, and the Indian guides taught us a wrestling game perfect for the sand.

Besides the dunes, the camels turned out to be fascinating animals. We were all riding males. Usually females graze in the countryside raising their calves. It is just the end of the 4 month mating season. Whenever we came upon a group of females grazing, the boys would just go crazy. First they would roar as deep and fiercely as lions. After that they would start foaming at the mouths. Next they would eject this weird pouch organ out of their mouths and inflate it with air. The final step was a bit much for us. Somehow male camels have evolved where they urinate backwards, the urine shooting towards their tales. The males would then urinate and crap while spanking their tales against their butts. This in turn would send the piss and crap flying everywhere, and its strong scent traveling to the females. Luckily during the riding their tales were tied to the side to prevent this. But at night after unsaddling them, sometimes we saw the tale slapping in action. I took a lot of pics of the trip. Hope you enjoy them.