Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Me and Steve McQueen BFF
And eventually it did arrive to be the day that the entire trip to Morocco had become enamored with. The day we greenhorns come to Africa would get to ride camels. For it seemed, at least to me, that the significance of this activity\went beyond simply those desireous to participate. The entire shape of the trip prior to that day seemed to be only a prelude, a countdown to camels. If feel I should correct myself here for all the references I will make in the ensuing post to "camels". In reality, as I learned in my Moroccan Odyssey, these strange desert creatures, alien to anything I'd ever experianced before, not camels but dromedaries. Dromedaries are the one humped natives to continental Africa, while camels are their many humped cousins from Eurasia. Joe Cool, the criminally lovable mascot for Camel Cigarettes is a dromedary.
Something you do not realize about camels (dromedaries... whatever) from basecamp, which also proved to be true about dunes, is that they are very tall. One does not get the full impact of their height until they sit upon their behumped back as the desert creature rises from a lying down possition to its full height. This is not a smooth process akin to riding in a glass elevator because the trip to the summet is punctuated by sudden, and frighteningly violent jerks as the camel adjusts to unbending each one of the seemingly infinite number of joints in each one of its legs. Obviously the number of joints in a camel's leg is a far cry from infinite, it must be something closer to a dozen per leg. Dems be some wobbley legged citters, G.
An unhealthily large percentage of the trip preceeding my camel excurison was spent trying to think of a name for my camel. Front runners included: Sonic the Hedgehog the Camel, Peter O'Tool, and General Zod. (Un-interesting sidenote that I admit does not fit into this post at all, but I fear if I neglect to say it now, this information will be lost to the world outside my head forever: I recently, while listening to one of the highly amusing and informational DC Comics podcasts, discovered the existance of a character I never knew existed. Somewhere in the convaluted annals of the DCU history and Pre-Crisis pre-history there was a character known as Caveman Superman. This information is amusing enough as it is, however, and I think some of my readers might already fear that they know where I'm going with this one, I realized Caveman Superman is a far more logical choice for the role of the referee in my infamous Superman II joke. As those though have heard the joke, save one of Kristin's high school friends, suffer great pain whenever I tell the joke, I will not tell it. For once one has heard my joke you can never un-hear it, and will spend the rest of an undying eternity wishing you could. Or you will, like me, find it funny.) But when I finally met and mounted my mighty steed, well... camel (actually: dromedary) I found a name that just sort of fit.
He (and it was a "he", I checked, accidentally) had a blond patch of hair on top of his head. From out of nowhere the perfect name struck me. Steve McQueen. Little did I know how perfect the name was, for not only was my camel a blond, he was also a bad ass mother, who didnt take any guff from anybody. I also suspect he hated Nazis, because who doesn't?
Steve McQueen's bad assedness was exemplified by the fact that, though the camels were tied in lines of five, and Steve was at the back of our particular line, right behind Kevin and his camel, Tiger Woo (Kevin is a golfer, not a member of the PA Secret Society of Blood Brothers, I made the decision to drop the "ds"), Steve McQueen refused to stay in line. There was no way he was going to listen to the MAN. Steve also had a special kind of harness on him that seemed specifically crafted to make it harder for camels to get out of. I am not surprised that Steve McQueen has a history of trying to escape captivity. I was half hoping he would break away while we were together so that Steve McQueen and I could cross the Algerian boarder and make a new life for ourselves there. But I guess Steve McQueen travels solo. He couldn't risk a green n00b like me complicating his prison break.
Most of the two hour long camel ride into the heart of the savage Sahara was spent by me and Kevin joking about Steve and his free spririt could not be caged. In fact we talked about Steve McQueen so much, and he was such an obscure reference that most of the people with us thought, not only that we were talking about a real person, but that it was someone on the trip with us that they had just failled to notice yet. It is still a mystery to me how you could spend half a week travelling around Morocco with the same twenty people and not notice that one of them was the star of "The Great Escape".
As I have previously mentioned, at length, it was hot in Morocco under the firey African sun. I will not waste more precious space in the interweb tubes talking about it now. I only mention it so that you will understand why it was impressed upon we newcomers to the bedouin life of desert travel the importance of covering our heads. Most of our number responded by buying headscarves and having the people at the hotel tie it in an authentic fashion. Being the stingy person that I am, I opted for a more economical approach. I tied one of the long sleeve button down shirts I brought with me to keep me warm in the frigid African temperatures around my head in a fashion I thought was reminiscent of Lorence of Arabia. I thought that because I could not see my own head. Really I just looked like a loon with a shirt tied round his head. As if Jervis Tetch was holding Gothem ransom, either the mayor pay him fifty million dollars or he would use his cerebral control chips to force everyone in the city to look silly with a shirt on their head, perhaps this was an Adam West plot. (Is it just me or have I been making a lot of Mad Hatter references?) But silly or not, it worked. Not only did it keep my head covered, but it protected my nech from the sun and I could put the shirttails over my face as protection against the sandy desert winds. And when the sun set and I was still riding Steve, I wrapped the shirt around the metal handle attached to the saddle, this prevented blisters. I'm willing to look silly for something that usefull.
And once the sun was down, boy was it dark. And those stars! But that's a story for another day.
-Kneel Before Zod
PS
Having a problem loading the pictures. They'll be up later.
Something you do not realize about camels (dromedaries... whatever) from basecamp, which also proved to be true about dunes, is that they are very tall. One does not get the full impact of their height until they sit upon their behumped back as the desert creature rises from a lying down possition to its full height. This is not a smooth process akin to riding in a glass elevator because the trip to the summet is punctuated by sudden, and frighteningly violent jerks as the camel adjusts to unbending each one of the seemingly infinite number of joints in each one of its legs. Obviously the number of joints in a camel's leg is a far cry from infinite, it must be something closer to a dozen per leg. Dems be some wobbley legged citters, G.
An unhealthily large percentage of the trip preceeding my camel excurison was spent trying to think of a name for my camel. Front runners included: Sonic the Hedgehog the Camel, Peter O'Tool, and General Zod. (Un-interesting sidenote that I admit does not fit into this post at all, but I fear if I neglect to say it now, this information will be lost to the world outside my head forever: I recently, while listening to one of the highly amusing and informational DC Comics podcasts, discovered the existance of a character I never knew existed. Somewhere in the convaluted annals of the DCU history and Pre-Crisis pre-history there was a character known as Caveman Superman. This information is amusing enough as it is, however, and I think some of my readers might already fear that they know where I'm going with this one, I realized Caveman Superman is a far more logical choice for the role of the referee in my infamous Superman II joke. As those though have heard the joke, save one of Kristin's high school friends, suffer great pain whenever I tell the joke, I will not tell it. For once one has heard my joke you can never un-hear it, and will spend the rest of an undying eternity wishing you could. Or you will, like me, find it funny.) But when I finally met and mounted my mighty steed, well... camel (actually: dromedary) I found a name that just sort of fit.
He (and it was a "he", I checked, accidentally) had a blond patch of hair on top of his head. From out of nowhere the perfect name struck me. Steve McQueen. Little did I know how perfect the name was, for not only was my camel a blond, he was also a bad ass mother, who didnt take any guff from anybody. I also suspect he hated Nazis, because who doesn't?
Steve McQueen's bad assedness was exemplified by the fact that, though the camels were tied in lines of five, and Steve was at the back of our particular line, right behind Kevin and his camel, Tiger Woo (Kevin is a golfer, not a member of the PA Secret Society of Blood Brothers, I made the decision to drop the "ds"), Steve McQueen refused to stay in line. There was no way he was going to listen to the MAN. Steve also had a special kind of harness on him that seemed specifically crafted to make it harder for camels to get out of. I am not surprised that Steve McQueen has a history of trying to escape captivity. I was half hoping he would break away while we were together so that Steve McQueen and I could cross the Algerian boarder and make a new life for ourselves there. But I guess Steve McQueen travels solo. He couldn't risk a green n00b like me complicating his prison break.
Most of the two hour long camel ride into the heart of the savage Sahara was spent by me and Kevin joking about Steve and his free spririt could not be caged. In fact we talked about Steve McQueen so much, and he was such an obscure reference that most of the people with us thought, not only that we were talking about a real person, but that it was someone on the trip with us that they had just failled to notice yet. It is still a mystery to me how you could spend half a week travelling around Morocco with the same twenty people and not notice that one of them was the star of "The Great Escape".
As I have previously mentioned, at length, it was hot in Morocco under the firey African sun. I will not waste more precious space in the interweb tubes talking about it now. I only mention it so that you will understand why it was impressed upon we newcomers to the bedouin life of desert travel the importance of covering our heads. Most of our number responded by buying headscarves and having the people at the hotel tie it in an authentic fashion. Being the stingy person that I am, I opted for a more economical approach. I tied one of the long sleeve button down shirts I brought with me to keep me warm in the frigid African temperatures around my head in a fashion I thought was reminiscent of Lorence of Arabia. I thought that because I could not see my own head. Really I just looked like a loon with a shirt tied round his head. As if Jervis Tetch was holding Gothem ransom, either the mayor pay him fifty million dollars or he would use his cerebral control chips to force everyone in the city to look silly with a shirt on their head, perhaps this was an Adam West plot. (Is it just me or have I been making a lot of Mad Hatter references?) But silly or not, it worked. Not only did it keep my head covered, but it protected my nech from the sun and I could put the shirttails over my face as protection against the sandy desert winds. And when the sun set and I was still riding Steve, I wrapped the shirt around the metal handle attached to the saddle, this prevented blisters. I'm willing to look silly for something that usefull.
And once the sun was down, boy was it dark. And those stars! But that's a story for another day.
-Kneel Before Zod
PS
Having a problem loading the pictures. They'll be up later.
# posted by Mr Tim @ 12:03 PM 
