Camel Safari in Jaisalmer* B&R

Raina: We took a jeep ride from Jaisalmer to where the camels were. We put our hats on and tied them with scarfs so they don’t fly out in the strong wind and mounted on the camels.

I felt so high on the camel and so proud. My camel’s name was Papoo, my brother’s was Moria, my mom’s was Mahendra and my dad’s was Michel Jackson. All the camels were boys so they do not get distracted with girls. My camel had beautiful eye lashes an fluffy hair in his ears.

Our guides, who led the camels, were Babus on the left and Sarif on the right.

After we rode the camels for a few hours we stopped to have a break. For food we usually had lentils and cooked vegetables and really good chapatis. Babus was a master chapati maker! He would usually cook on three rocks but once he dug a hole in the ground and made a fire in it and cooked on top. Our meals always started with yummy chai.

While on the camels we passed by abandoned villages with stone houses and sometimes temples, but most of the time we were riding through open desert.

At night we slept on blankets over big sand dunes watching the stars. When we woke up in the morning we were usually covered in sand from head to toe. The only way to keep the sand away from our hair was to sleep with turbans on our heads.

I loved everything about the camel safari!!!

Boryan: Camels are the most hilarious animals I have ever seen. Just looking at my camel Moria’s face makes me laugh! Their eyes are huge and decorated with big eyebrows and eye lashes which make the eyes look like as if they are bulging out. Their ears are very small and look like they are supposed to be on a bear’s head: they are fluffy cute and stick out of the camels head. Their mouth and nose look as if they are combined. Their nose is only two slits that are right above the mouth and the mouth has two upper lips (one on the right and one on the left) that the camel uses to snatch leaves off of trees, then on the bottom of the mouth is the one lower lip this makes their mouth look a lot like a cats mouth.

The first thing I noticed was that camels are lazy animals. They walk at a slow, loosy goosy pace (walking in big strides which make riding one very bumpy). Babus had to always keep Moria from veering of in a different direction to eat some leaves or because he spotted a female.

The second thing I noticed was that camels are always chewing on some leaves or other food. It turns out that camels first swallow their food without chewing it and then after a while they regurgitate it and then start to chew it again, the process repeats several times. This keeps the camel chewing while it walks and leaves a little stench around it’s mouth.

Whenever we stopped for lunch or to sleep for the night the camels would always have their two front legs tied together so they couldn’t run to far away in search of food. When one of the camels wanted to go fast (to get to their special food first) or he was scared (like when Babus got angry at one of the camels for trying to eat the other camels’ special food) he would basically bunny hope with four legs!

Another funny thing about camels was how they sat down and got up. The way that they do it is funny because of how the camels legs have evolved, which is with three joints. So, whenever a camel sits down or gets up it goes through three different steps. Here are the steps and some pictures to go along with them:

Step 1: The camel sitting down.

Step 2: The camel lifts on it’s front knees.

Step 3: The camel lifts is back legs and then off of it’s front knees till it is standing upright.

All in all, camels have a funny personality that goes well with their clumsy but well designed bodies! I liked our four camels so much that I learned how to paint them.