Story: A Ride to Forget

I am an animal person and while I love to go to the zoo and see exotic animals I am just as happy to go to the state fair and see the cows, chickens and pigs. There is one animal, however, that I have developed a strong animosity for... the camel. On a recent trip to India I found myself in the desert town of Jaisalmer just 100 miles from the Pakistan border. Besides its fort, one of the main things Jaisalmer is famous for is its camel trekking. Incredibly stupidly, I thought I wanted to go on a multi-day trek and was disappointed that we didn’t have time to fit one in, so I had to settle for a ride from a small village out to the sand dunes to watch the sun set followed by an evening of traditional entertainment and a night in a local “hotel”.

It started out propitiously enough with a 20 minute ride from the village out to the dunes. Sure the camel had a bad attitude and was covered in some type of small vermin, but the twelve year old kid who was my camel driver seemed competent and it felt like an adventure. At the top of the dune we dismounted and were promptly abandoned by our camel drivers. People come from Jaisalmer on large coach buses and there was extra money to be made giving them short rides from the bottom of the dune, to the top. The sunset was beautiful and we managed to position ourselves slightly away from the majority of the crowd and enjoy it in relative peace.

After the sun set the remaining light dissipated fairly quickly and our camel drivers were no where to be found. Finally when it was only moments from complete darkness they reappeared. Now they were in a big hurry because not only was it pitch black but they were supposed to have us back at the hotel so that we could see the entertainment and they knew we were late. My companion’s camel galloped away into the darkness leaving me alone on my camel with my prepubescent driver. All around me the night was alive with other camels, a few jeeps and hordes of male villagers who had been on the dunes selling sodas and trinkets to the tourists. I could hear and feel them all but I couldn’t see anything as there is virtually no electricity in the village and there wasn’t any moon to speak of. At this point I normally would have been feeling a little nervous about the situation but instead I was writhing in pain. Because we were running so late the ride back to the village had been undertaken at a jarring gallop. Certain delicate parts of the female anatomy are not meant to be repeatedly pounded in such a way and as there are no stirrups or much of anything to hold onto it is extremely difficult to prevent yourself from getting pummeled. On top of the jostling and bouncing the camel runs with a roll to its movement, so I was also sliding back and forth. I could feel the skin pealing off of my derriere, but since it was slightly less painful than the pounding I was able to somewhat successfully ignore it.

When we arrived at our destination it was all I could do to hold back the tears. My legs were shaking so badly that I could hardly walk from the muscle strain of trying to hold myself up and minimize the impact. We were roundly scolded for being so late by the proprietor of our hotel (as though we had a choice in the matter!) and forced to immediately go sit in the front row on a thin blanket placed over cement. The show turned out to be really good but I couldn’t enjoy it because I was in agony the whole time. Later when we finally were able to go to our room I discovered that I had bleeding saddle sores and my legs still felt like mush.

The really good news was that I hadn’t brought any other clothes with me because the guide had said we might sleep on the dunes and there wouldn’t be any opportunity to change clothes. As I lay down on my belly to go to sleep I cursed the camel who had brought me to this sad state of affairs. In the morning when I had to take off one of my shirts to tie it around my waist to hide the blood stains on my khaki pants I cursed it again. I still was pretty upset the following day when I had to endure a 20 hour train ride back to Delhi without actually sitting for any of that time (Thank God I had a sleeper berth but I am not used to laying on my belly for 20 hours at a stretch either). Now that significant time has passed I have tried to let go of my anger at the camel. I know it wasn’t his fault; he was just doing his job. I feel like I am making progress but then again, I was flipping past the nature channel the other day and instinctively recoiled from the program that was on because it was showing a camel! Really all I can say at this point is that I will think twice before voluntarily riding any animal and I definitely won’t ever be getting any where near another camel!