13331 kms traveled so far
93/200 kids sponsored. Raising awareness & funds to send children in rural India to school. Donate at http://happyharriet.co

Today was all about Double-Humped camels. I’m officially a camel fan! They are SO CUTE!!! They’re like a short stegasuarus with a constantly curious expression slapped on. They startle easily, so we’ve gotten good at noiselessly walking or even noiselessly driving close to them (it helps if you’re going down hill and put the car in neutral) to photograph them or simply observe them. The smartest one usually snaps its head up as soon as it hears a sound, immediately stops chewing, and stares at you/the cause of disturbance, unblinking, with an expression that’s a mixture of curious and stupefied. After a while, a light bulb goes off in its head and it starts to walk away, at a quickened pace, from the perceived danger. The others notice this faster-than-normal walk, and just blindly follow.

We think we mastered the art of looking non-threatening by following these 3 steps: (1) be completely still when being fixed with an assessing stare, (2) stare back, (2a) wait until the camel blinks and go “aha! You blinked!!!” in your head, (3) and then move noiselessly to the spot where you want to stand/take pictures.
Saw lots and lots of sheep/goat, cows, horses, and an animal I’m calling “fluffy cow” (it’s sooo fluffeee!!!) – don’t think it’s a yak, but it’s super duper hairy and with long hair flowing all the way down to its knees. Fluffy cows are only seen in grassy green plains, unlike horses, cows, sheep/goat, and camels. Also saw gigantor eagles resting/flying/generally everywhere – couldn’t get close enough to get photos, without them flying away.
Did a couple of hundred kms of off-roading (it’s just a thing we do now), bent another rim enough to get a flat (yet another thing we do often these days), changed out the flat tire, and kept on driving until we found a spot in the middle of nowhere to “camp” for the night. The wind is howling and too strong to trust our tent to stay put, so sleeping in the car tonight.