Following @TheLastHatGirl's decision that she'd like to ride through the desert on an horse with no name (though he was later renamed Whisky due to his colour). I thought I'd dig out the tale of my ride through the desert on a camel named Colin for you to read.
So here it is.
Any grammatical errors of sections that don't make sense can be blamed wholeheartedly on the fact that I was recovering from what, I thought at the time, was the sickest and the closest to death I could ever be in my entire life. As it turned out in the month to come, I was quite, quite wrong...
24th November 2003
Hello. Not written for a few days due to unforeseen circumstances. We've both been ill. I was very sick and the Fluffy One decided that she had to go one better and get extremely sick. It was very scary for a while but we have some medicine (I get 6 tablets a day and Ros has to take so many she rattles when she walks) and we are both recovering nicely now.
Today is our first day out of the hotel in a while. Ros decided she was well enough to go out for a walk. So here we are - emailing.
When I last wrote to you we were in Jaisalmer. This email finds us still in Jaisalmer. Don't know if I mentioned it earlier but we've both been ill.... I can see from your faces that you know it already so I'll move on.
Since we last spoke we've been on a camel safari, the start of which was postponed by a day as I’d gotten sick the night before we were meant to leave. But I had, it seemed, started to get better so we set off anyway.
That morning we breakfasted, checked out of the hotel, took a jeep driven by a madman out into the desert and waited on a dusty road for the camels to arrive.
Luckily we weren't bored as some local children, idling on their way to school, and an elderly goat herder arrived to try and poison us with berries from a nearby bush. Ros palmed hers and only pretended to eat it. I wasn't so smart. It tasted like a very under-ripe cherry. Shan't be eating one of those again in a hurry.
Finally the camels arrived, accompanied by an enormous band of French Canadians. Luckily the Canadians were at the end of their safari and we escaped with only having to talk to one of them.
Getting on a camel is really easy. You simply climb on it and sit still. Staying on the stupid beast is wholly different affair. They're lumpy, awkward, they move in bizarre directions and they stand up in stages - jerk, lurch, jolt, jolt, jerk. You must lean back or plummety doom and a mouthful of desert awaits you.
Luckily I was leaning back when mine "leapt" up.
So we got up and we set off (not pausing to say goodbye to the Canadians who were still resolutely insisting on being both French and Canadian in the same sentence). We walked - or rather the camels juddered - to a watering hole where some local women pissed themselves laughing at the westerners (that's us) and tried to get Ros (that's Ros) to carry some water for them.
Then we led the camels to the nearby village where some very bored looking locals let us look at their houses and take pictures of them. A baby cried. It obviously knew that our safari wasn’t going to get much better...
So back onto the camels. Juddery jolt for an hour or so to a clearing where we stopped for lunch. It was here that I realised I still wasn't well. A point several forays off into the desert, to dig little holes, confirmed for me. I was, it turns out, doing better than the Fluffy One who had started to look a little green...
Soon after we set off again. Ros had come to an understanding with her camel. She would give it instructions and it would flatly ignore them and drag her through bushes. My camel (who I decided to call Colin - as I couldn't remember the name the guide had made up) had taken to stopping randomly so that the camel behind walked into his bottom. No one knows why...
more plodding, interspersed with dung beetles, random straw structures, a crop circle and trying to convince Colin that left was rubbish and he should actually go right like all the rest of the camels, and we reached a big sand dune. This is where we to set up camp. It was also, it turns out where we to cut short our trip.
Night fell quickly. Fluffy fell ill. Very, very ill. The guide very helpfully decided she was scared of the dark and ignored her plight. The guide tucked us up in blankets and left to go have fun with the other guides from all the other parties that were staying in various places on the dune. Racked with pain and constant sickness Ros tried to sleep.
She managed about 1 hour all night. In the morning after several very odd conversations I finally persuaded the guide that he should go for help.
He left.
Without telling us.
Leaving us alone on the dune. Whilst Ros tried to sleep in the shade of a spiky-death tree I busied myself with exploring the dune. It was big and sandy. Much as you'd expect.
It was then I hit on the ultimate entertainment. I found a wild dog sleeping nearby and decided to bury it in sand. After some initial consternation from said animal it agreed to lie there and be buried. In total I managed to cover about a third of the beast. I think if there were a world championships I would be worthy of at least a bronze medal for that little effort.
Eventually, after 3 hours the guide came back and said that the jeep was coming to collect us. So he sulkily loaded up the rest of his camels. The jeep duly arrived and we rode our camels the 200yds to where it was parked (partially so that we can say that we both began and ended our safari on camel-back, but mainly because the Fluffy One couldn't walk 5 paces unaided, let alone down the sheer, slippy side of a big, sandy dune).
Then we were rushed back to our hotel. Or at least that was the plan. Unfortunately they'd sent a jeep driver who couldn't actually drive a jeep - which makes me think he was in the wrong line of work and perhaps his job title should be changed to something more fitting like "bloke with moustache".
Luckily he was able to flag down a passing vehicle and get them to ferry us back to our hotel, where we were met with friendly, if a little panicky, faces, our own room from the day before (replete with a shiny new TV set) and big fluffy duvets.
We didn't sleep at all that night. Ros was very ill and what seemed like every Indian and his brother had gathered outside our room for an all-night shouting contest. Well they had to shout as their TV was so bloody loud they needed to yell to be heard. So it was fair enough really.
Next morning I asked for a quieter room. I was shown an equally noisy one. I asked for a quieter room. Eventually I convinced the manager that the quieter room upstairs would be quieter as it was further away from the source of the noise. He didn't look convinced but said that we could move upstairs after the boys had finished cleaning the room.
We moved. There was no TV. We stared at the walls for a few hours. The monotony happily broken by mad dashes to the toilet and feeling sorry for ourselves. I went and asked for a TV.
A 3 man comedy team turned up with a TV and a table. Much hilarity ensued. To tell a long story more succinctlier the power cable on the TV was too short to reach the power outlet. 3 Indian brains did battle with logic trying to work out how to plug it in. Logic won. A new TV was fetched and all was right with the world.
Some days passed. I began to feel much better but Ros' health was rapidly deteriorating. We were both really scared. A doctor was summoned and prescribed half a pharmacy for her. Finally she started to show signs of improvement...
So now, here we are. Out and about. Emailing with gay abandon. One more day of pills left. Both on the mend. Didn't get to finish the camel safari but like I said camels are less exciting than you'd think. So we don't mind all that much.
Anyhoo another email session has wended its way to a close. I'll write again soon (hopefully with less near death experiences in the next one)
Bye for now, stay healthy
love and hugs
1 not so sickly Cantus J Fraggle
Today is our first day out of the hotel in a while. Ros decided she was well enough to go out for a walk. So here we are - emailing.
When I last wrote to you we were in Jaisalmer. This email finds us still in Jaisalmer. Don't know if I mentioned it earlier but we've both been ill.... I can see from your faces that you know it already so I'll move on.
Since we last spoke we've been on a camel safari, the start of which was postponed by a day as I’d gotten sick the night before we were meant to leave. But I had, it seemed, started to get better so we set off anyway.
That morning we breakfasted, checked out of the hotel, took a jeep driven by a madman out into the desert and waited on a dusty road for the camels to arrive.
Luckily we weren't bored as some local children, idling on their way to school, and an elderly goat herder arrived to try and poison us with berries from a nearby bush. Ros palmed hers and only pretended to eat it. I wasn't so smart. It tasted like a very under-ripe cherry. Shan't be eating one of those again in a hurry.
Finally the camels arrived, accompanied by an enormous band of French Canadians. Luckily the Canadians were at the end of their safari and we escaped with only having to talk to one of them.
Getting on a camel is really easy. You simply climb on it and sit still. Staying on the stupid beast is wholly different affair. They're lumpy, awkward, they move in bizarre directions and they stand up in stages - jerk, lurch, jolt, jolt, jerk. You must lean back or plummety doom and a mouthful of desert awaits you.
Luckily I was leaning back when mine "leapt" up.
So we got up and we set off (not pausing to say goodbye to the Canadians who were still resolutely insisting on being both French and Canadian in the same sentence). We walked - or rather the camels juddered - to a watering hole where some local women pissed themselves laughing at the westerners (that's us) and tried to get Ros (that's Ros) to carry some water for them.
Then we led the camels to the nearby village where some very bored looking locals let us look at their houses and take pictures of them. A baby cried. It obviously knew that our safari wasn’t going to get much better...
So back onto the camels. Juddery jolt for an hour or so to a clearing where we stopped for lunch. It was here that I realised I still wasn't well. A point several forays off into the desert, to dig little holes, confirmed for me. I was, it turns out, doing better than the Fluffy One who had started to look a little green...
Soon after we set off again. Ros had come to an understanding with her camel. She would give it instructions and it would flatly ignore them and drag her through bushes. My camel (who I decided to call Colin - as I couldn't remember the name the guide had made up) had taken to stopping randomly so that the camel behind walked into his bottom. No one knows why...
more plodding, interspersed with dung beetles, random straw structures, a crop circle and trying to convince Colin that left was rubbish and he should actually go right like all the rest of the camels, and we reached a big sand dune. This is where we to set up camp. It was also, it turns out where we to cut short our trip.
Night fell quickly. Fluffy fell ill. Very, very ill. The guide very helpfully decided she was scared of the dark and ignored her plight. The guide tucked us up in blankets and left to go have fun with the other guides from all the other parties that were staying in various places on the dune. Racked with pain and constant sickness Ros tried to sleep.
She managed about 1 hour all night. In the morning after several very odd conversations I finally persuaded the guide that he should go for help.
He left.
Without telling us.
Leaving us alone on the dune. Whilst Ros tried to sleep in the shade of a spiky-death tree I busied myself with exploring the dune. It was big and sandy. Much as you'd expect.
It was then I hit on the ultimate entertainment. I found a wild dog sleeping nearby and decided to bury it in sand. After some initial consternation from said animal it agreed to lie there and be buried. In total I managed to cover about a third of the beast. I think if there were a world championships I would be worthy of at least a bronze medal for that little effort.
Eventually, after 3 hours the guide came back and said that the jeep was coming to collect us. So he sulkily loaded up the rest of his camels. The jeep duly arrived and we rode our camels the 200yds to where it was parked (partially so that we can say that we both began and ended our safari on camel-back, but mainly because the Fluffy One couldn't walk 5 paces unaided, let alone down the sheer, slippy side of a big, sandy dune).
Then we were rushed back to our hotel. Or at least that was the plan. Unfortunately they'd sent a jeep driver who couldn't actually drive a jeep - which makes me think he was in the wrong line of work and perhaps his job title should be changed to something more fitting like "bloke with moustache".
Luckily he was able to flag down a passing vehicle and get them to ferry us back to our hotel, where we were met with friendly, if a little panicky, faces, our own room from the day before (replete with a shiny new TV set) and big fluffy duvets.
We didn't sleep at all that night. Ros was very ill and what seemed like every Indian and his brother had gathered outside our room for an all-night shouting contest. Well they had to shout as their TV was so bloody loud they needed to yell to be heard. So it was fair enough really.
Next morning I asked for a quieter room. I was shown an equally noisy one. I asked for a quieter room. Eventually I convinced the manager that the quieter room upstairs would be quieter as it was further away from the source of the noise. He didn't look convinced but said that we could move upstairs after the boys had finished cleaning the room.
We moved. There was no TV. We stared at the walls for a few hours. The monotony happily broken by mad dashes to the toilet and feeling sorry for ourselves. I went and asked for a TV.
A 3 man comedy team turned up with a TV and a table. Much hilarity ensued. To tell a long story more succinctlier the power cable on the TV was too short to reach the power outlet. 3 Indian brains did battle with logic trying to work out how to plug it in. Logic won. A new TV was fetched and all was right with the world.
Some days passed. I began to feel much better but Ros' health was rapidly deteriorating. We were both really scared. A doctor was summoned and prescribed half a pharmacy for her. Finally she started to show signs of improvement...
So now, here we are. Out and about. Emailing with gay abandon. One more day of pills left. Both on the mend. Didn't get to finish the camel safari but like I said camels are less exciting than you'd think. So we don't mind all that much.
Anyhoo another email session has wended its way to a close. I'll write again soon (hopefully with less near death experiences in the next one)
Bye for now, stay healthy
love and hugs
1 not so sickly Cantus J Fraggle
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