Camel Trekking Tours

The camel is famous as “the ship of the desert;” it can survive in the desert under the harshest circumstances, travelling great distances steadily and surely.  For thousands of years the camel has been an important partner in the lives and commerce of desert peoples.

Our camel trekking tours follow ancient trade routes, passing old caravan stations and archaeological sites.  Camels afford us the great fun of staying out in the desert as long as possible, enjoying the openness of the landscapes and giant sky during the day, and sleeping under incredible stars in dark nights un-touched by human lights – and listening to real silence.

Each day our caravan leaves as early as possible in the morning, and we stop when we feel like it, to dine or relax and spend the night wherever suits our fancy.  We continue each day exactly as we please, from station to station.  We will help you build a special understanding with your camel, and when you find yourself on its back for whole days on the desert, you’ll discover what a friend the camel really is.

Many people think the camel is a bad-tempered animal, but this hardly the case.  Camels are easy to deal with and easy to control – even a child can control a herd of hundreds, because they will always follow the first camel wherever he is being led.  Camels have their own beauty – their big, liquid eyes and long fluttering eyelashes, their stately and haughty manner.  They are also famously interesting –

·  They do not store water in the humps, nor in the misnamed “water cells” in the stomach; the hump is a reserve of fatty tissue without any bone structure.  When a camel is fit and healthy the hump is tall and firm – in poor health the hump becomes soft and flabby and may disappear as this energy reserve disappears.

·  Camels live for up to 40 years.

·  The earliest known camels flourished 38 million years ago.

·  Camels have a keen sense of sight and smell.

·  They do not have a fixed breeding season and their young can stand up and travel almost immediately after they are born.

The camel’s amazing ability to go for long periods – and travel great distances – without water is attributable to three adaptations:

When deprived of water they excrete less water in their urine.

They lose very little water through perspiration.  In most mammals normal body temperature is 100F (38C), just like humans.  We maintain this body temperature in two ways: we sweat (perspire) and we lose water by transpiration from our lungs – our breath.  A camel’s body temperature has a wider range and not until it reaches 105F (41C) does the camel begin to sweat – as a result less water is lost from its body.

Finally, in most mammals the loss of water from sweating causes the blood to thicken.  In contrast, much of the water lost from the camel’s blood is replaced by water from other tissues.  In this way the normal blood volume is maintained for a longer period and therefore the cooling processes needed to maintain normal body temperature can continue to function.  More amazing is that although, eventually, the camel loses water from its tissues and blood, he can tolerate losing 25% of his body weight without endangering his health.  Imagine the impact if a healthy human lost one-eighth of his body weight in the space of a few weeks!