Camelccinos

On Sunday morning, the American Women’s Group had an outing to a camel farm.  This seems like the way an unemployed expat ought to spend her time, so I signed up. 

We drove to a place that is about five minutes from our hotel.  Muscat is not overly urban feeling sometimes, especially when a gate to what looks like a regular villa is opened onto a camel farm.  But there you have it.

The woman who owns the camels and farm is Dutch but has lived in the Middle East for 33 years.  She has beaten breast cancer and attributes this in large part to her habit of drinking two litres of camel milk each day.  So, the first part of the morning was about the benefits of camel milk.  Apparently, camels have only one stomach, which makes their milk more digestible for people.  It is also low in fat and low in cholesterol.  And, there are no known allergies to camel milk (which may be because not many people drink it?).  Anyway, there was a bowl of chocolates made with camel milk in front of me, and I was presented with a ‘camelccino’ shortly after sitting down (which was perfectly good), and so I happily listened to the talk about camel milk.  I will say that it seems like true dedication that her camels do not currently have any babies so she has to go to Dubai every two weeks for her supply. 

The fascinating part about this woman, though, is that she goes on really long walks (like months-long) through the middle east with her camels.  She has spent quite a lot of time walking through Iran and says that the people there are just lovely to her.  It is this part of her story that I wish she had spoken more about as this whole concept of walking alone apart from four camels through Iran pretty much sends my mind spinning. 

So, after the talk, we got to meet the camels.  I hope to have another picture to add to this post in the future but for now, I’ll just slap these not-so-good ones up.  There was a bit of drama during this bit of the morning because one of the ladies had a carrot in her handbag.  The problem was that the carrot was in a plastic bag.  One of these cheeky camels leaned over and helped herself to the bag+carrot combination, and of course, it could be fatal for a camel to swallow a plastic bag as it can block their digestive system.  So the lady who owns the camels and farm had to run into the enclosure and get one of the men who works on the farm to come and stop the camel (who was running across the pen so as not to be deprived of her hard-won treat), and there was screaming and swearing and we were all just watching, horrified.  BUT, all is well that ends well and they got the plastic out of the camel’s mouth in the nick of time.  The poor lady who had the plastic bag felt horribly but of course, the happy ending is all that matters in this type of situation and I told her that.  PLUS, who would’ve expected a camel to be that aggressive about getting a snack? Not me, that’s for sure.  (I wasn’t on the ball enough to even bring a snack for the camels, but it definitely would have been in a plastic bag.  Who knew that my lack of organization would potentially save a camel’s life?)

I should mention that these are Saudi Arabian camels, not Omani camels. 

 Drinking the 'camelccino' (coffee with camel milk)

This is the only male camel (bull) and he is not very nice, apparently.  He's also much bigger than the females.

I realize that this story has gone on long enough, but I need to tell you that we also see camels each night on our way back to the hotel.  I have no idea who owns them, but the camels just sort of roam around between the ocean and the highway that we use most often, and the kids make a big game out of spotting them.