Have you ever been to a Camel Race?
This is my second visit and I was well prepared this time.
Keith held two cameras and I had two…. he even shot some pretty good film.
We had to be there at 7.00 am, it was a milky dawn and the sun filtered through the morning mist. Is is fog or is it sand… who knows.
The trigger to turn off to the 190 mile race track is a shop with 10 foot cracked eggs on it's wall…. hard to miss… but we did and a u turn in the dust set us on the right path.
I was a bit disappointed when we arrived… there didn't seem to be too many camels and handlers around… last time the place was jumping.
We drove around the track, probably for 5 miles… suddenly we saw a stream of SUV's moving at a heck of a pace into the middle of the track…. OK, follow those cars…. which we did.
Suddenly we realized we were on the out track and ehicles came hurtling towards us…. but Ron saved the day with some fancy footwork.
And there they were, 100's of camels.
The noise and color was amazing.
Each Camel has a handler, generally they are workers from India and Pakistan, their garments are vastly different to their employers in their pristine "dishdash"
The camels are "dressed" with their embroidered and woven saddles, crochet muzzle and robot jockeys in their silks and jockey caps….
Yes, you heard correctly… robots.
OK< I have to write more tomorrow… it's really late…