In case it’s not obvious, I love riding horses! So it’s probably natural that for as long as I can remember, riding a camel has been on my bucket list. We finally got to check that off in Egypt (ok, I’m barely 30, so maybe finally is overkill), and it did not disappoint!
We went to a nice panorama to look at the pyramids and find the “good camels,” and I was quickly more intrigued with the camels than the pyramids. They are SUCH bizarre animals. They don’t have hooves the way the horses do; the bottoms of their feet and perfectly flat and look hairy. And they are so, so tall.
These are our camels:
Of course I ran straight up and got on first– the weirdest part really was standing up. It is a multi-part process in which the back legs go most of the way up, then the front legs halfway up, then the back legs fully erect, and front legs fully erect. I don’t even fully understand the mechanics to me; it’s weird that such a large animal lies down in the first place but I guess they have no natural predators here? Anyway, here are some shots of everybody within seconds of getting on their first camel. The first one is a shot of my camel’s neck since obviously I couldn’t get a picture of myself…
I think we paid between $10 and $15 a piece and man, was it worth it! First of all, the pyramids from this perspective were particularly nice. The morning haze was finally starting to lift a bit, there was nothing between us except for sand dunes. The area felt open and desolate compared to the other side of plateau, where the dense urban jungle of Cairo abuts the plateau. I hope they plan to keep the area this way, because it really adds to the effect to see the pyramids as they would have been 4000 years ago, rising out of the sand.
Riding a camel is not that much like riding a horse, actually. First of all, when they walk you swing forward and then lurch a little bit back. It’s definitely a more lumbering sort of movement, and since there necks are a good two or three feet below your hands it’s a very different sensation balance-wise.
We stopped for a photo shoot in front of the pyramids. The camel boy was pretty hilarious; the whole walk down he kept saying “Hi Ho Silver!” When my mom was afraid to put her hands up for the photo, he said, “Don’t worry mama, it’s camel not tiger!” in broken English. Which made Severin and I bust out laughing. He also saw that I wanted to go fast and made the other camel boy try to run with my camel. After we only got a couple of steps, they gave up and let me break off on my own! The ropes are just a single rein and not amazing for steering– I think the camel would have run off a short cliff if I told it to. However, I did go on a tear all around the plateau, spinning the end of the rope in the camel’s eye and clucking at it to go faster. I did momentarily think about how bad it would be to fall from this height without a helmet buttttt… you only live once. Riding is riding and I felt free! It was a day I won’t soon forget.
