How Many Camels Are You Worth??

Apparently, I'm worth 5, with the added bonus of 5 Ferraris. That's right, a berber in Tunisia tried to buy me. Luckily for me, Jose politely refused the offer. Once I was mistaken for being Moroccan. I kept telling him I was Spanish (only because I didn't know how safe it would be to prance around flaunting my Americanness), but he didn't believe me...I was no doubt Moroccan in his eyes. That's what a little desert sun can do to you, I guess.

Our trip to Tunisia has come to an end. What an amazing experience. I have so much to tell and don't know where to begin. I'll start with what I loved the most. The Sahara Desert. That immense sea of orange filled to the brim with silence and burning heat. The silence is so thick you can touch it, and it's only broken with the soft whisper of sand sweeping over the dunes in the breeze, the creaking of the saddle and the occasional deep groans coming from the camels. Perfect tranquillity.



We arrived at around 7PM. Camels lined up in a row all sitting down resting. The sun blazing down on our blue Tuareg turban covered heads. One by one we swung a leg over and held on tight, because once the camel felt the pressure on his back his hind legs sprung up, we teetered forward with our noses almost touching its neck, then up came the front legs, jerking us back into an upright position. There we were, 6 1/2 feet off the ground trotting through the dunes.

I was in a dream. Riding a camel through the dunes of the Sahara. I had only imagined this in my dreams. Such a mysterious culture so foreign to me. The camel stops and rests. We get off and begin to touch the hot, soft sand, letting it run through my fingers. I quickly fill a bottle with the stuff and preceed to frolic, running up and down the steep dunes. Covered head to foot in sand...and loving every minute of it.

We get back on the camels and head back. The sun sets. Golden glares bounce off the sand. The camels seem to be smiling. I'm definitely smiling. We arrive back at the buses. My camel sits. We say our farwells (I pet his neck and he groans). That was the end of my ultimate adventure.