In Which Our Camel Adventure Comes to an End

This time, we didn't miss the sunrise.

It helped that we were sleeping open-air that night, so no tent blocked the harshest streams of sunlight. It also helped that it was three of us huddled together under one blanket, so no one slept all that well as the blanket wasn't quiiiiite large enough to fit us all underneath and it was almost a relief to truly wake up. But perhaps the greatest aide to our awakening was the cry of "SITARAAAAAAM!!! DAVID, THE SUNRISE! DAVID?? SITARAAAAAAAAM!!! EVAN, HANNAH, IT IS THE SUNRISE!!!! SIIIIITAAAAARAAAAAAAAAAM!!!" And so we were awake.

David had, by this point, perfected his own ingenious way to successfully avoid the desert burrs when taking a break in the wilderness, a carefully thought out method that had gone through much discussion ("I think I've thought of a new way to go to the bathroom") and resulted in the wearing of his pants on his head when it was necessary to remove them completely. Speaking of his head, on this trip he was also the great entertainer to the kiddos as a headstand afficionado, and I took a lovely photo of him upside down on the dunes at sunset. (Note: I don't think I can post pictures here in India, but when I get back home I plan to have much fun illustrating this thing).

After some breakfast and some lounging while Roop and Mohan went to find the camels, who were free to wander during the night and seemed to enjoy this freedom to the fullest and therefore took about an hour to find, we got going. To switch things up a bit, I betrayed my darling Mr. Raj for Mr. Singh, David hopped on the Raj, and Evan decided to take a mid-morning snooze in the camel cart. At first, riding Mr. Singh was a relief. He's a bigger camel, so all those parts of me that were sore from riding Mr. Raj remained untouched on the back of Singh. Not to mention, it was quite fun being in complete control of such a beast, and I had about as much luck as Evan keeping him from snacking on what he wished. About 20 minutes into the ride, however, a dozen NEW sorespots were screaming for mercy, and it took all I had (and the fact that Mr. Singh was lagging behind enough so that asking everyone to stop so I could get off would require more effort than it was worth) to not beg to be let down. After what seemed to be an eon, we finally came to rest at a camel watering hole under the trees, where camel, cow, and sheep intermingled in harmony. Three giggling little girls watched us closely, imitating our speech and leaving us pretty sure it was a laughing AT and not WITH situation. We WERE pretty goofy looking, after all.

Convinced we had stopped for lunch, we all groaned a little when Roop directed us back on the camels after they had refilled their humps with water. I quickly reclaimed Raj, as at least I had had the last few days to get used to the dull ache caused by his saddle, Evan was once again on Singh, and David helped direct Chon from the camel cart. It was only a quick ride, enough to get us to our lunch spot, and for the two minutes it took to get from point A to point B Roop attached Mr. Raj to Mr. Singh, an interesting experiment as Raj was moving much faster than Singh and we kept ending up wandering in circles and having to muckily work our way forward until we reached the base of the first truly movie-like desert dunes we had happened across. Roop told us to go explore while he and Mohan got lunch together, and off we went.

Photo opportunities abounded, and we had quite the time taking pictures of shadows and of David taking a mighty leap from the edge of a dune into the soft sand below. The same three giggly girls followed us up there, and insisted on their picture being taken, which resulted in more giggles every time I showed them the result. One turned out to be a great dune jumper herself, and another entertained herself by feeling my face and my weirdo mickey mouse hair, and the last was the shy one who stood off to the side and smiled behind her hand. The girls succeeded in working my two silver rings off my hands (the ones I never take off) and putting them on their own tiny fingers. They offered me chewing tobacco, which THIS time I was smart enough not to take, but was a little thrown when they were trying to explain to me what it was by showing me the chewing tobacco they kept tucked in their bottom lip. They were just so little for such things! After some more jumping, a little dance lesson (the dune-jumper had some GREAT moves), and more picture taking, we were ready to go back down the mountain and we gave the girlies some stickers David had in his bag and asked for the rings back. This was nothing doing, and soon they ran away, stickers in hand, and one girl with a ring in her mouth. Darn little girls, outsmarting me.

A bit sad at the loss of my rings, David, Evan, and I made the trip back to the camel cart, where soon all these fried things made their appearance on plates in front of us, fried potatoes and onions and such, delicious in a way only fried things can be. All of us were slightly shocked when the three girls made a reappearance over the dunes and then made their way over to our little lunch site, having their own midday meal only a few feet from ours. We were convinced that after they had acquired the stickers and rings they got what they had wanted and would have nothing more to do with us. I was still put out about the rings so didn't pay them much attention, but after awhile it became clear they wanted what we were having for lunch, and Evan was able to barter a trade: the rings for the food. And so now I have my rings back!! A little bit yellow, from whatever they had in their lunch tins as that's where they had been storing them, but my rings nonetheless. And still they wanted to play around, and waved big goodbyes when we left with shouts of "TA TA! TA TA! TA TA!" following the camels as we ambled off, and we came to this conclusion about the whole experience: well look at that, kids are the same no matter WHERE you are.

What followed lunch was the last big haul on the camels before our trek came to an end. This was the longest, by far. It was through beautiful landscapes and farmland, and it became clear we were getting closer when Roop told Evan not to worry about directing Mr. Singh, he knew the way from here. And so at THAT point, we thought we couldn't be more than ten minutes from our final destination, having made the trek from Jodhpur to Jaisalmer. But oh no, let us not be fooled any longer. I'm thinking it may have been another hour, maybe two, before we finally stopped, or at least it felt that way as most of my time was spent adjusting and readjusting myself on Mr. Raj, often to no avail as that dull ache was becoming not-so-dull by the minute. I was determined, however, to ride triumphantly into our final destination, and therefore took a deep breath and did my best to endure. Evan took the smart route and joined David in the cart after Mr. Singh's back became an instrument of sheer torture and they had a lovely evening ride through the desert. Tenaciously, however, I hung on, and felt a brilliant flash of triumph when at last, AT LAST, we reached the end of our cross-country trek and reached the finish line, nobly ambling into.... the family farm. Where we had begun our journey. Which wasn't anywhere NEAR Jaisalmer. Which meant we had just done a big, big circle around the surrounding desert of Roop's home and come right back to where we began. I felt a bit deflated, to say the least. A tour, more than a trek, shall we say. So the moment of triumph wasn't quite as sweet, but we had still done it. We had still braved three days in the bathroom-less desert, and slept with no shelter but the sky, and crawled up and down desert dunes, and learned to live among the deadliest of desert burrs.

And we sat back, and enjoyed our chai tea of triumph, and refused the celebratory rum (okay, fine, I didn't refuse, but I didn't manage more than a few polite sips), and came to the decision that a game of cards must be played, so David went into our little mud hut and didn't find the cards but DID discover a huge nest of giant yellow desert bees among the boxes of bottled water they had provided. After quite a bit of contradictory information - "No no, the bees are friendly, but DON'T SHINE THAT LIGHT ON THEM!" "Don't worry, they sleep at night and only get active in the morning (David's point: "yes, but we will be IN there in the morning...")" and "No no, they won't sting you, unless they do. And it's only bad if there are 20 of them (Again, David's wisdom of noticing there were at least 100 in there...)" - we relocated to a different hut, one located within the family compound and filled with everyday living stuff, which was actually a little bit more awesome than sleeping in the guest hut.

As we were getting into bed David remarked "Now wouldn't it be ironic if, after all that, there was a nest of bees in THIS hut... Roop would just LOVE us then." We all had a good "yeah, geez, woooo!" when Evan, who was playing with the flashlight, said "Oh look, there's a bee right there! And, um, a few more farther up... and... oh god." Turns out a whole OTHER happy huge yellow bee family was living in the hollow post in the middle of the room, but at this point we were all too tired to care and uneasily rolled over to sleep.