Long coach ride with brief stop to wait for others by some grand peace sign from 1996.
More ppl got on coach then off to starting point.
Bedouin houses have satellite dishes etc cheating really lol.
Just before we got off the coach, the guide said : need to drink water... Sunblock, cover head. Outside temp is 47 deg C. Gawd!
Stopped in front of a lot of camels (40-50).
Brought our own head scarves from quad biking trip. Boy put them on us differently, just covering top of heads not faces.
Vicious sounding camel complaining loudly... It was Connors and he reluctantly approached to get on.
We all got on and up easily. Lissa had to swap for some reason.
Hard wooden knob on front and back of saddle. Not comfortable kept poking all of us in the back. Left bruised.
Ride not painful but very uncomfortable. You can see why a lot ride side saddle or with legs crossed. I tried & it was marginally more comfortable. Tiring on the legs, inner thighs sore.
Not a nice smell, at all...
Riding in a train of about 50 camels.
Videos being shot. Managed some myself but very jerky as there's not a huge amount of rhythm to the camels lolling gait.
Connors tripped over a few stones making him squeal as it dipped suddenly lol.
We trudged on for ages... They told us the ride was 50 minutes long but we could abort early if we wanted to. Suddenly the whole experience turned into Stephen King's "The Long Walk" - no one wanted to be the the first to drop out, so we all marched on. One guy in a blue t-shirt was in agony, I think his man lumps met camel humps in a terribly confined space.
We got off and the boy guiding us demanded money. Not nice but we gave him some anyway.
We were led to a sheltered spot at the foot of a hill. Kin of like converted stables with cushions... We sat and drank water, recovering from the heat of the late afternoon.
We were invited to watch the sunset from the top of the hill, but it had already gone, so was a bit of a let down.
As the sun faded, candles were lit in makeshift holders on the tables in our stall. Only ours wouldn't light because Sam thought it was a bin of some kind and threw a drink away in it, so the candle was soaked lol.
As the light faded further we were invited for dinner at a table outside the stables. It was pretty good considering where we were but it was obviously brought in from outside.
The last light finally dipped away and we were left with a growing camp fire a short distance from where we sat. The Bedouins started singing and playing a makeshift drum... Then they got ppl dancing.. Oh dear!
We avoided the Bedouin shenanigans and were finally herded to a spot somewhere in what I'd call their car park. We looked up and couldn't believe the sight... More stars than any of us had ever seen in our lives... It was like something out of the start of a Hollywood movie. Utterly amazing.
Then an eloquent Egyptian man demonstrated exceptional knowledge of the stars, using a laser pointer that seemed to stretch all the way to each star he pointed at... He told us about the constellations and the star signs (I got called out and shown Virgo... It's on it's side in this part of the world but stands on one leg when viewed in England).
We got to look thru some powerful telescopes at Saturn and a star whose name I forget, but both were immensely small... I know that sounds ungrateful but years ago we bought Adam a half decent telescope in the year of Saturns closest approach, we saw the storm spot on the side it was that close.
We were herded back on the coach and home, bed was welcome as we were all knackered.
Bye for now!
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