Camels Are the New Buffalo

Pardon the inside joke, but everyone in my family knows exactly I mean when I say, "camels are the new buffalo." Suffice it to say that I continue to get all kinds of trouble for a rather enthusiatic interaction with a herd of buffalo in Yellowstone several years back that resulted in like 100+ pictures (in comparison to the 10 or so I took of family members). I'm not sure what it was about a huge, furry, sorta dumb looking animal that makes noises that sound like a frog - but I was quite taken...

...Til last Saturday. Al Ain, http://www.asiatravel.com/uae/al-aininfo.html, hosts one of the last true camel souks in the U.A.E. and I couldn't resist a visit, and was it ever time well spent.

Basically guys from Oman cross the border and sit on throw-away sofas and office chairs without backs waiting for either: (1) really rich Emirates to drive around the perimeter looking at camels from their cars or (2) really silly American girls to come wandering around with a cameras to take pictures. In the former case, they can make as much as several thousand to several hundred thousand dollars for one camel. In the latter case, they stand around and stare at group of "the Englis-ees" who've come a very long way to look at something that has the equivalent level of interest to a local as a cow would have for an American in the US. Also in the latter, they stand around taking pictures of said foreigners with their camera phones.

Truth be told, the first camel had me at that first hand sniff and hand lick. I won't say that we didn't bond because I think we did.



They also make a completely and totally unexpected noise - which might intensify when one's baby is approached, not that I know that from experience or anything though...



They do however have terrible breath. But then that might be expected from an animal that I observed eat its own poop.













Finally, I wish I could say that no camels were harmed in the making of this video. But they were and, sadly, this one in particular as, apparently, it was headed for the UAE version of the "glue factory."