After lunch and the Berber village we headed for Douz which is known as ‘The Gateway to the Sahara’. It’s an oasis but as usual Hollywood lied to you. Oasis’s are massive, Douz has 500’000 palm trees! The landscape changed dramatically the further south we traveled. We went from green well tended olive groves, millions of them, to scrub, to rocks, to sand. The sand in the Sahara is very fine it’s almost like dust and they have huge problems with it encroaching on everything. They’ve even tried planting eucalyptus trees but nothing works. I can’t imagine what would keep the largest desert in the world at bay.
We drove through Douz and ended up at a way station in the desert itself were all the camels and ATVs were. However the first thing we had to do was get headscarves. These were just 10 dinar each so we got ourselves some colourful ones. Fortunately the man put these on because I have no idea how to do it. I’ll have to find a YouTube video for it. If you ever find yourself in the desert don’t be cheap and don’t worry about your hair or makeup and get these scarves. They are an absolute necessity.
Once suitably dressed we were taken over to the camels. I should point out that Jill and Michell had also paid for this extra and Jill wanted to have a go at getting on a camel. I don’t think it would have gone well and neither did the tour guide so they ended up in a horse and carriage.
It all looked a bit chaotic, especially compared to Morocco. An elderly wrangler, I don’t know his age, he might have been 30 and the desert sun is very cruel. Anyway he came over and beckoned us to follow him. He took us over to a couple of camels and mine looked a bit small. I protested I was too big but he insisted I got on so I did.
Twat, as I’ve decided to call this camel, immediately stood up without any warning. Camels getting up and down is very awkward, if I’d never been on a camel before the chances are I would have landed right on my face. The connecting rope between the camels was quite long which meant Twat had a fair bit of leeway. In Morocco Lyn had patted the head of the camel I was on much to my annoyance so of course she thought she’d do it again. Twat was a different animal. Twat wasn’t going to take anybody being kind to it so Twat tried to bite Lyn’s leg!
The wrangler had wandered off so I shouted,
‘Oi! It’s trying to bite her!’
The wrangler said ‘No, No bite’
‘Yes it fucking is!’ Was my well thought out response. I turned to Lyn and said ‘Are you going to stop fucking about with camels now?’ To which I got a very muted ‘Yes’.
After this not great start we headed off. The thing about riding a camel as a tourist is that you have absolutely no control. You are completely at the mercy of the camel itself and the wrangler. Unfortunately Twat was being a twat and the wrangler was too busy on his phone or chatting to the other wranglers to pay attention to what was going on behind him. I was nearly knocked off 3 times as Twat merrily bumped into other camels and attempted to crush my legs.
About half way I was just about to insist I got off when Twat made the decision and again without warning just sat down. He’d had enough of carrying this fat bastard about and wouldn’t get up. They tried to get me to go on another camel but I flatly refused. In the end I walked the last kilometre and half leading Lyn’s camel and Twat back to the way station. One might say I was a proper camel toe. I was annoyed at the time but having had a few days to reflect, how many people can say they’ve lead their wife through the Sahara Desert while she rode a camel. Apart from lots of Arabs of course.
After the camels we went straight to the ATV’s as did Jill and Michell! I’ve never ridden an ATV and I’m fairly sure Lyn only sat pillion once when I use to have motorbikes. But in the same words probably uttered by Ozzy Osbourne and Rik Mayall, ‘How hard can it be?’
Turns out it was fairly easy once I remembered that I needed to lean into the corners otherwise it was a bit like trying to wrestle a car with flat tyres and no power steering. Lyn was on camera duty for this and didn’t extend the poll out (and I don’t blame her) but we still got some usable footage. Again the headscarves proved their worth and kept most of the sand out which does get everywhere and obviously provided the only safety equipment. However full credit needs to go to Jill because she did the whole thing. But then she does have experience with the mobility scooter.
Last bit of the day was to make our way to this alleged 4 star hotel ‘The Sahara Douz’. It was shocking, I couldn’t even take a proper shower and had to hose myself down while standing in a bath that had no mat or grip of any kind. Quite frankly I’m surprised the hotel doesn’t have an ‘In Memoriam ’ board for guests who’ve slipped and killed themselves in the bathroom. Dinner wasn’t served until 7:30pm and we had a 4am alarm call to look forward to the next morning. Tents would have been better.
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