We were woken up at 5:00 am in our tents to watch the sunrise in the desert. Can you believe it... some people decided to sleep instead! But for those of us smart enough to get up, it was absolutely beautiful. The Burburs took us out on a trek to the big dunes, which was quite a work out for 5am. But they ensured us that the higher we went up the dunes the better it would be and they were certainly right. Before the sun rose the sand was a light grey, but the moment the sun began to peed out from behind the dunes everything turned a bright golden color. It was one of the most peaceful, serene moments of my life. There was not a building, person, or animal as far as the eye could see. We were in complete solidarity and it was the best feeling. We sat and watched the sun rise for a half an hour or so and then headed back to camp. We had to get ready for our big day. We were going to ride camels and visit a small desert village.
After getting dressed and eating our breakfast of hard boiled eggs, bread and yogurt, we bought turbans from the burburs to protect our heads from the sun... and just because it's cool :) I bought a bright yellow turban and had it wrapped around my head by one of the burbur boys. It was absolutely amazing how cool the turbans kept you that day! We would have died without them.
The camels began to arrive in small trains and the photo taking began. I was a little apprehensive that the camels wouldn't be very nice, but I was completely wrong they were all very nice. Nice and smelly! They smelled awful. It took quite a while for the 80 camels or so to show up, but as soon as they were all there we were assigned to certain camel trains. Ellen and I shared a camel of course and it was a hoot. It wasn't that strange for me having ridden a horse before, but most people had never even done that, so you can imagine. The getting on and off was the most interesting part. When a camels back legs are up and its kneeling on its front you very nearly fall off each time. The funny thing is, the camels are very picky and don't like more than one person getting on. So one person has to get on and hold on tight while it stands up. Then they have to sit the camel down again and you nearly fall off again and then wait for the second person to get on and start the whole process all over again. It was very entertaining.
Once we were all on our camels, it was a lot like riding a horse, in terms of how it felt anyway... we weren't steering or telling them where to go, I have no idea how that would have gone. The camels were connected in small trains, about three or four camels to a train, and were lead in the front by a man on foot. We walked for about an hour giggling and taking pictures of everyone as they passed. It was then time to give the camels a rest, so we all climbed a VERY high dune to look at the view. Our director Noelia brought her snow board so that she could board down the dunes. Many people boarded down the dune and other road it like a sled. It was a lot of fun to watch, but it was entirely too hot for me to think about boarding down and walking all the way back up! A couple of people actually got sick for the heat that day after over exerting themselves on the dune... so I'm glad I didn't follow suit.
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