They&#;re sturdy, resilient and reliable. Sure, the camel may well be the ultimate travel companion for desert adventures but, asks our featured contributor Leon McCarron, how do you even go about buying one?
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A quick disclaimer: I have never bought a camel.
I am, you might say, an aspirational camel buyer. I&#;m in the market for one. And yet I live in London, so it probably won&#;t transpire any time soon. Instead I&#;ll continue to scheme, and dream, and wait for the day until I can legitimately call myself a camel owner.
A fair question might be: Why would someone in London think of buying a camel? Of course, I don&#;t want it here. It wouldn&#;t be particularly useful on Oxford Street on a busy Saturday&#;not that it would even be the oddest thing there. What I do aspire to, though, is to purchase a camel for another desert crossing at some point in the future.
To date, I&#;ve traveled on foot in the Gobi and the Empty Quarter, and in , I spent a couple of weeks in the Southern Sinai desert. There, I walked with two Bedouin and a wonderful, friendly and sturdy camel called Harboush. Harboush carried all the kit for our team of four, as well as food for over a week and up to three days&#; worth of water. He walked over cracked, hardened earth, through soft and rippled sand, and over sharp, fractured granite rock.
Never once did he complain, and our only falling-out was on the first evening when he got his nose into the box of cucumbers. In hindsight, it was a small tiff, and all was soon forgiven.
Firstly, Emma reports, one begins by deciding what sort of camel one wants&#;there are racing camels, breeding camels, camels for milking, and so on. In Sinai, a young male camel for the purpose of traveling long distances should cost between $600 and $ depending on age and pedigree. And if that sounds a lot, when I asked the same question of a friend in the UAE, I was told that $ wouldn&#;t even buy a blind, lame beast in the Gulf.
Next, you look at some of the physical elements. &#;A prospective buyer should stand behind the camel and watch it walk, checking the gait for irregularities,&#; she says. The ears and tail also have telltale signs about the health and strength of the animal and, as Emma wonderfully summarized in a translation for me: &#;It&#;s all about the hump.&#;
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The hump is a fat store&#;not water, as is sometimes believed&#;and there should be space behind it. This indicates good breeding. Then there&#;s the question of personality. Camels will not display too many unique characteristics until about the age of four or five but after that, by watching how they interact with other camels (as well as humans) one should get an idea of whether it is generally cheery&#;like dear Harboush&#;or whether they are inherently grumpy, and therefore best passed on.
Perhaps the most romantic notion of all travel with animals is that of journeys on horseback; riding off into the sunset in Rockies or the Andes or, as adventurer Charlie Walker did, into the Mongolian grasslands. Charlie&#;s story is, in equal measures, exciting, and cautionary.
He had arrived in Ulaanbaatar, having walked for six weeks to get there from Beijing, and begun to dream of taking the weight off bloodied feet for the next stage. After asking around, he was driven out to a nearby village where, amid regular sessions of copious vodka-drinking, he was shown all manner of skinny and un-suitable Mongolian horses.
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Around midnight, one was brought out that looked reasonably healthy (thought whether that impression had anything to do with the vodka consumed remains a mystery). A deal was struck but, when he returned in the morning to collect his new steed, he was presented with an entirely different horse&#;or, rather, a rather small and unimpressive-looking pony. He saddled up nonetheless, and set off.
As one might expect, the results were mixed. &#;Little Nicky&#; was moody, and the best that can be said of their relationship is that they came to co-exist in relatively harmony&#;but in the knowledge that really neither was happy. Eventually, Little Nicky was stolen in the night by horse thieves (or, perhaps, pony thieves.) Charlie finished his walk on foot. Next time, Charlie said, he&#;d look for a stronger, friendlier Central Asian Horse. Or, take a motorbike.
I too have used horses on journeys in the past, with reasonable success, and I even once bought a donkey (though I never actually took it anywhere&#;that&#;s a story for another time).
But it&#;s still the camel that I have my heart set on. It seems, from the stories of friends and experts both here and elsewhere, that they key is to make sure the animal has been well-treated in the past, and that I (or you) as a new owner will continue to do that.
As a final tip&#;and this advice has cropped up numerous times, including from Sinai&#;when it comes to really assessing an animal, some people just know. I&#;m not sure if this means that there are imperceptible differences, or if it&#;s more of a mystical thing, but whatever it is, it sounds good.
Sadly, I don&#;t have the gift. I&#;m pretty sure of that. But, perhaps you do. And, if these stories have awakened a previously dormant camel-lover within you, then there&#;s only one way to find out. All I ask is that if you do go to buy a camel anytime soon, you take me with you.
Be sure you have the right climate for a camel: not too cold. If you live in Alaska or Greenland, ask for a Bactrian camel, or move somewhere warm.
Contact us to discuss your requirements of camal com. Our experienced sales team can help you identify the options that best suit your needs.
Check to see if the zoning laws will let you keep a camel. If they won&#;t, get them changed,or move.
Make sure you live in a flat, sheet-like terrain. Camels don&#;t like hills or bumps. If you have hills or bumps, move.
Make sure your marriage won&#;t interfere with your keeping a camel. If it does, well&#;.you know the drill. You may as well plan to consider the camel a sort of animal wife, for keeping a camel has a lot in common with keeping a wife. You must give your camel all your love and commitment. Like some wives, camels are long-lived. They may live to be 30 or even 50, and they will want your complete affection and attention. They will expect Christmas presents, and flowers on Valentine&#;s Day.
What kind of a camel should you buy?
Actually, there are only two kinds of camels to choose from (more types coming soon!): the Bactrian camel and the dromedary camel, also called &#;He-of-the-One-Humped.&#; The Bactrian camel has two humps and is called something else. If you intend to ride your camel, this would be a good time to consider the humps. If you end up with a dromedary, you will have to find some way to balance yourself on top of the hump, or strap yourself behind the hump. This is contraindicated because you won&#;t be able to see where you&#;re going. Strapping yourself to the front doesn&#;t recommend itself, either, as camels don&#;t care to have people sitting on their necks, and may turn their heads and spit at you or worse, bite off your knee.
What about an old camel, or should I get a young one?
You would be better off with an older camel if you intend to ever approach it. Young camels are much less expensive, and for a good reason: they are&#;well, shall we say difficult to train. An older camel will already have been trained by some other fool, and even more important, you will not have to wait 40 years before being rid of it!
However, if you insist on a young beast, keep in mind that they are born in the winter. If you want to actually have a try at training it, snatch it still sweating (use caution here) from its mother and run as fast as you can toward home. There&#;s no guarantee you&#;ll get there.
At the camel market you will have a chance to talk things over with the owner of the beast that attracts you. You will want to ask him some questions, such as:
&#; Where did this camel come from? (&#;From Mama Camel&#; not an acceptable answer).
&#; Has it had any control problems in the past (problems controlling itself, or its owner)?
&#; Why are you selling it? (Missing fingers, kneecaps or nose-ends could be a clue).
&#; Has the camel ever seen a vet? If so, what for? What did the camel do to the vet, and to the owner, once it got him home?
&#; Has it been wormed? Is it wormed now? If not, when will it be wormed? (&#;When you get heem home&#; not an acceptable answer).
&#; Can this camel do any tricks? Like crouching so a rider may mount? Dismount? Wipe its own nose?
Look the camel over carefully before you agree to buy. Have the owner walk it around a bit. Does it stagger, list to one side or the other, gallop ahead dragging the owner with it? On the command &#;Go&#; does it go, or lie down groaning it&#;s too tired to work? Does the appearance of a stranger send it into a freakout? Can it get down and up without problems? Ask the owner to give you a bale of the hay the camel is eating now to take home with you.
Once you have purchased your camel, or even before, if allowed, you will want to take it to a vet who is experienced in camel care. This may require some traveling, but you want your camel to be healthy, don&#;t you? Especially if it bites you, right? Check with your state (if you still live in a state after all these moves), to see what kind of health tests your camel should have. Whatever is required, it is a good idea to take all that are on offer. (Don&#;t let your camel get wind of this, if you value your life). Despite any revulsion you might feel, check the camel&#;s droppings. They should be dark green in color. If they&#;re pink or orange or black, demand an explanation.
In transporting your camel to its new location, use a trailer &#; don&#;t rid it unless you don&#;t care whether you ever see your home again. Get a nice well-fitting trailer. Plan your route in advance and drive slowly so as not to fling camel and trailer this way and that &#; where the camel goes the trailer will also go. Keep this in mind.
The camel&#;s shelter should be prepared in advance. Your new camel needs a sturdy shelter, a paddock to roam in, a salt block, water and hay. Camels appreciate companions, so get it a donkey, a sheep or a horse to befriend. If you don&#;t have any of those, try a cat.
Camels are more sensitive than your average Tweety bird so make allowances. Put it in its paddock in daylight and introduce the shelter slowly. Keep a close eye on your camel because problems and irritants are sure to crop up. If it eats or steps on the cat, get a larger animal. If it steps on a nail, call the vet, then scour the paddock for any other sharp objects that you should have removed already. At least two weeks will be required for the camel to get used to it&#;s new diet. The process will be helped along if you mix some of the camel&#;s old hay in with the new.
If you have purchased a female camel, and you can through Job&#;s patience and periods of training get the beast to hold still long enough, you can milk your camel. Camel&#;s milk is rich in calcium and contains less lactose than cow&#;s milk; it&#;s higher in vitamin C and lower in cholesterol. It is difficult to distinguish it, but if you really try, you can.
Oh &#; one more thing. Before purchasing your camel, make sure it does not harbor any pests, especially the camel spider, which they say is in the habit of clinging to the belly of the camel and eating its way inside at its leisure. According to US soldiers returning from the Persian Gulf War, camel spiders:
&#; Can jump several feet into the air, and chase you at 25 mph, so perhaps you&#;d better practice up;
&#; Can grow to the size of dinner plates;
&#; Can make high-pitched screaming noises as they chase you, the further to terrify
you;
&#; Will sneak into your tent at night and clasp itself to your stomach, injecting a venomous anesthetic so you don&#;t know anything has happened until you wake up to find your bladder missing.
Fortunately, these claims have proved to be spurious, if not outright lies, no doubt designed to frighten incoming soldiers, but all the same, check under the camel to make sure.
Now, aren&#;t you glad you bought a camel? What more could a person want in a pet?
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