Bedouin Dinner & Camel Ride

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Those of us who were brave enough to attempt the camel ride were picked up from our hotels early (about 3:30 pm), so we had time to arrive at the Bedouin ‘party’ site with the others. We went by bus outside the city of Sharm, going through one security check point, before travelling into the desert for about a half an hour or so. (We had to carry our passports in case they wanted to see them.)

When we arrived there were a number of camels and their Bedouin owners awaiting us in an open area in the mountains. The first thing I noticed was the horrible stench of the animals…worse than a pig barn in my estimation. We were quickly matched with young Bedouin boys to board their camels, although I was one of the last assigned, being one of the few single people there. (They did the pairs first.)

I needed help to get my leg up and over the camel’s hump so that I could get seated in the saddle….my short wheelbase has its disadvantages sometimes. At any rate, once we were all seated, the camels rose en masse, high back end first so that we were pitched forward at an alarming angle that made us all feel like we were going to topple off ass over teakettle, and land in front of the camel and be trampled.

Alas, that didn’t happen, but I certainly let out a shriek at one point, which was when one of the owners snapped the photo of me. I think I kind of blacked out after that, though really I just snapped my eyes closed and did a great deal of praying as I grappled with the tiny, round saddle horn(like a stub of a broom handle)—the only thing we had to hang on to. I clung to it for dear life while the beast rose on its front legs. I swear I had the tallest camel there!

Camels are very jerky animals to ride, kind of doing a loping gait with their long gangly legs, not smooth like horses. I became brave enough as we moved a long to try and take photographs one-handed, but ended up with a shot or two of the sky and the tops of heads as I quickly popped the camera up and then down again to grab the saddle ‘horn.’

Just before the ride ended, I actually relaxed somewhat and was able to take a couple of decent shots, but this was after a half an hour of riding them. Getting down and off the camels was almost as bad as getting on. They go down on their front knees first, of course, then their back ones. I didn’t mind the actual riding part, but not sure if I would be in a hurry to go on one again.

Once we arrived at the Bedouin site, we were given what they call Bedouin tea (I’ve also been told it is Egyptian tea)…it’s actually a peppermint tea of some kind, though milder than what we are used to. This particular brew was far too sweet, but it was nice and hot seeing as how the sun was setting and the air cooling off.

We were then shown how they made their Bedouin/Arabian bread, which is made of flour, salt and water, mixed and rolled thinly, then stretched by throwing it into the air like pizza dough.

Once thin enough, they slapped onto an upside down ‘wok-like’ thing over an open fire. It is turned several times, then ripped into pieces and shared. We could also smoke a shisha if we wanted to (it was extra), but smoking isn’t my thing so I didn’t try it, but there were some lovely apple and other scents wafting through the air.

Loud disco-type music suddenly blared out of their sound system, but it wasn’t appropriate to the scene of a soft desert night with lights flickering from the sides of the mountain, and many stars visible in the clear sky above.

Several of us complained, including two friends I made on the trip. They were a daughter and mom from Germany (Berlin – the east side). (The daughter was probably about the same age as me.) I was told they would play Bedouin music when they did the dance show at 8 pm. The others had more luck, and for a time the music was turned off completely.

My new German friends were great and we had good conversations though haltingly sometimes as we had fun testing each other’s languages. I also spoke to a family group from Norway- a mother and her two sons and her sister. Luckily, these different groups of people can speak a little English so we could communicate.

The excursion wasn’t very well organized and we sat for two to three hours doing nothing much, while we waited for the bus loads of people to arrive and the dinner to be served. The food was scrumptious, but I suspect not traditional Bedouin as we expected, though it was very tasty. I tired a little of everything, though we weren’t sure what we were really eating, except for the chicken and rice. There were several salads, potatoes, some kind of sausage-like things without casings, a stew made of mostly potatoes and a few carrots and a little meat of some kind, and more bread. I did ask about some of the dishes, but I couldn’t always understand what they were saying.

Soon after the meal was served, the dancing began with some accompanying music and singing. There were a number of different performances with men and women, either separately or together, including a belly dancer, and a single special dance with a man in a long, colourful skirted costume, who whirled around in one direction with a number of different sized tambourines in various formations, similar to a First Nation dance with hoops. (Though of course, the tambourines were solid, so he couldn’t use his arms and legs to step into them to make the designs and tell their traditional story, though we had no idea what it was.) He spun around for a very long time in the same direction…quite incredible really, and then going through the crowd, still spinning like a top.

At one point they got the whole crowd up doing a kind of snake dance that seemed to go on forever. I ended up in the centre with the belly dancer, attempting to emulate her. (Yeah, right…I really should have taken my friend Susan’s advice to learn belly dancing and practiced before I left Canada.) The rest of the people kept dancing around and round us, snaking in and out of each other, dancing, and yelling and singing. It was great fun, but all I could think of as I danced and shook and swirled that at least no one knew who I was and I’d probably never see any of them again.

After the whirling man finished, the entertainment abruptly ended and the entire ensemble all of a sudden started packing up…it was over….All through the entire evening, we did not have anyone explaining what was going on or what the Bedouin life was about or the meaning of their dances, what food we were eating, etc., so I was very disappointed, because I wanted a total experience and to understand the people and their culture. I was back at the hotel by 10p.m. We caught a bus back—they didn’t want us riding camels in the dark. I will talk to a young man at the hotel tomorrow and ask him to give me some details of the Bedouin life as I think he is of Bedouin descent.

I’m not sure if it was something I ate that didn’t agree with me, or the fact that we ate so late that upset me, but I didn’t have a great sleep that night and felt kind of ill in the morning. This wasn’t good as I was up at 3:30 a.m. to catch my flight to Luxor the next morning, but it wasn’t bad enough to make me stay home.