30/03/2010

The room was extremely hot last night and the room was like an oven, neither of us slept well. Got up to meet a guy at our hotel who took us to another guesthouse to grab breakfast (not included with the Camel Safari) and wait to be taken to just outside the fort where we met a young couple Rebecca and Julian who were recently married.

We were then taken an hour by jeep with 2 Kolkatians also on the Safari to where the beginning of the Safari. As we mounted our camels, mine appropriately named Emer I was expecting desolate desert with no vegetation, instead there was modern infrastructure like power lines and a countless amount of wind turbines ruining the sense of being lost in the middle of nowhere. We did get to see some desert villages housing only a few families and you could see them struggling in this time of draught, this area had very little rain in the past 5 years drying up the crop and killing the livestock.

Under a tree we were cooked a simple lunch surrounded with goats eating our scraps and leftovers and after we had a little siesta under the shade whilst the midday sun was high and too hot for us to continue on.

The scenery didn’t change much and our camels were killing our thighs by the end of the day however when we reached where we were going to camp for the night we were in the middle of a some sand dunes to view the sunset and the full moon.

As the sun was setting over the sand dunes we were greeted by another set of travels on another camel safari where we munched down dinner and shared stories around a fire, our guide ‘Sarjent’ told us a few of his experiences with various people during his 15 years of guiding that were very funny then breaking into song with another local. The traditional songs sung and a beat played from an empty water container were very good, even their rendition of ‘Barbie Girl’ into ‘Camel man’ was hilarious.

Unfortunately the stars this evening were not great due to the full moon although we did entertain ourselves with some long exposure photography under the moonlight dunes, drawing camels and doing fancy lighting tricks with flashlights. I taught Rebecca some tricks with her Canon 5D, a very expensive camera that she had no idea how to use aside from the automatic feature.

Later we were given blankets and we slept under the night sky being checked out by dung beetles that thankfully don’t bite or sting.

Lighting Effects with Long Exposure with sand dunes

Lighting Effects with Long Exposure with sand dunes 2

My camel... tried to draw using a LED

Dunes near Jaisalmer

Our Camel Safari in Sand Dunes

Tired Camel

Face to Face

Lunch!

Boy baffled by pop rocks (Candy that pops in your mouth)

Small Village outside Jaisalmer