Anyway, last night's episode featured spoiled teen, Bjorn, who was sent to the sweltering deserts of Morocco. The Moroccan lad that he lived with was dressed in the same garb that our camel guides had sported, including clothing color, head-scarf & all. Prior to participating in a camel trek across this magnificent desert, I had never ridden any animal [depending upon how you define it].. not even a horse. From the second we took off in Boston, I was so excited - wanted to virtually fast-forward our time in Portugal & Spain just to sacrifice more time for the camels. If I could turn back time.. I kid.. a tad.
You know how if you ride a bicycle for too long, you start to feel a bit tender and bothered in your special parts? Well, riding atop a camel hump intensifies this by about 100 times. Just mounting the cami and awaiting his 6 foot jump from lazily lying to somewhat steadily standing was more of a workout than I was prepared to endure. Courtesy of a camel-induced adrenaline rush, I think we got past this initial pleasure-pain fairly quickly. For some reason, I had envisioned a 24 hour journey to the middle of the desert.. fortunately, it was only 1.
We were in a caravan of six. While riding Sammy, the creative name I dubbed my living chariot, I had the pleasure of watching Lauren's camel [I'm going to call him Pete] release feces for the next 60 minutes. Before I had laid eyes upon Pete's buttocks, I had been foolishly smiling to myself as I was mesmerized by the beautiful "desert rocks". I'm not sure if any of you have ever had the pleasure of riding a camel, but if you do in the future, my suggestion would be to request the first creature in the caravan. Not only because of the proverbial [read:literal] sh*t-storm, but also because of the fear you may experience when watching your cute cami walk. I could barely calm my anxieties once I'd convinced myself that Pete was obviously going to trip himself and take the rest of us down the desert hills, scraping us across the "desert rocks" as we hit the Sahara sands like a house of cards. If ever a nip would have come in handy..
Press on! This we did, but not without a couple of scares. Sammy & I were fifth in the caravan only to be followed by Skidz & Cam. Because I had forgotten a portable bag for our over-night in the desert, I had to resort to Lauren's hot pink sack. Note to all: Apparently, camels become hypnotized by fluorescent colors. CAM WOULD NOT STOP TRYING TO RIDE UP ON ME AND SNATCH MY BELONGINGS OUT OF MY BAG. Of course, this got Sammy all "I wanna look in the bag too, Cam. She's on my hump".. and always as we were heading downhill. I was convinced my legend would be left in the Sahara.
Needless to say, we did make it to camp that night.. stay tuned for Part II.
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