A tale about a trekking through the desert of India by camel, captured by a passionated photographer, and passionated traveler
It was getting summer and temperatures were raising when we left the desert city in the northwest of India. The city was located near the Gobi dessert, what was gonna be our destination for an excursion by camel.
I was traveling together with a very kind Chinese girl, Echo who had been my travel companion for a couple of weeks. We made a lot of memories those weeks but ohh, this is gonna be one of the best!
The first place we went was an ancient ruin village. The story goes that all people suddenly left. Just one day on the other..
I am sitting here in the most beautiful ruin, looking down at the village
Just wondering, what would be the story of the people who suddenly left?
The only inhabitant of this ruin village might be this little bad
A house we passed by on the way, the inhabitants of the desert live with the bare minimum, must be tough...
After having a quick stop at the ruins we followed our journey to the friend of our driver, he was gonna be our guide and was waiting already for us with camels! Camels! That has been a dream for me since long long long! I am so excited! Camels, desert, sanddunes... It is like a fairytale! Oohhh dreams can come true!
The guide showed up with three big camels, one for everyone of us. The camel they pointed at me had a baby! I never saw a baby camel before and this one was sweetly enjoying his time. Could today get any better?
Our guide for the day and those majestic animals he owned
They prepared the animals, saddled them up, gave them some water and helped me to get up. They ask the camel to lay down so that makes it a lot easier to get up. When she stood up it felt kinda bouncy but luckily I managed not to fall down. Yayy, I am gonna ride a camel!
My camel for the day
By the time we started our trekking to the camp where we were gonna spend the night, it was already afternoon. The sun was going down and the heat became a little less. Also nice for the camels but they honestly didn't seem to bother. The little one was happily roaming around, but made sure she stayed safely near the mom. When the distance became to big she would put a little run to come by.
This adorable one walking next to the mama
We arrived at the camp and the camels got their well deserved rest. The walk was just 1,5 hour and camels can walk way further. It was rather us who were tired.
The little one was happy to drink
Chill time! This is one of my favourite pictures. I love it how the light and landscape work so well together
Our guide asked us if we wanted to try some camelmilk. I was very curious and was very willing to try. He walked to the camel to milk her. The milk was fresh and warm. I don't really like warm milk in general but it didn't taste very different than cow milk.
He took just a little bit of milk so there would be enough left for the baby camel
And she definitely enjoyed the rest of the milk!
Slowly it was getting dark, very dark. There is no light pollution in the dessert, only the stars were out there. The staff made a fire like how they used to do it in the old days, the days their parents and grandparents and far far ancestors used to make long trekkings to Pakistan, to trade and make a living. And probably they still cook on the same way in many desert villages.
The food they cooked is called Dahl, the most famous curry paired with chapati, a kinda flat bread. I loved the food they cooked!
Some weeks before my friend learned about the existence of Bang Lassi, a green yoghurt drink which is very famous in India and she loves it! The herb that makes it green is... Weed! We would have loved to sip it in the dessert but yeah.. yoghurt wouldn't be great to carry with us, but our great hostel owner brought us to some place we could buy green powered cookies. First, ride the camel and than see flying carpets is what the seller told us.
By the time the cookies started working we were laying on top of a sanddune. People sometimes ask me how stunning the stars shine in the desert. Well I don't really know but I saw Winny the Pooh in them! I saw a shot load of shapes. It was a magical day. The desert, sanddunes, camels, but ooohhh those cookies were the finishing touch!
Thank you for reading my little tale, I hope you enjoyed my story and my pictures :)
Regards,
Sascha