Camels, Camels and More Camels!

Naturally in the Middle East you expect to see camels!

Talking camels in stores

Friendly camels outside of hotels!

Fast camels inside of hotels!

Even camel tissue dispensers

Whole stores devoted entirely to camels!

Of course the best camels were the live camels!

In Oman camels roam freely but they are branded and have an owner.  Evidently they are very smart and make their way to their homes at night.

Our guide said that an adult camel can be worth up to $2000.  As we were driving along in our bus, suddenly we slowed to a practical stop.  When I looked up, I saw a young camel crossing the road totally oblivious to the bus zipping along.  If you hit a camel in the daylight hours, it is your insurance's responsibility to reimburse the owner.  Camels that are hit in the daytime are often the 'best camel I ever had' or 'a champion camel' thus commanding a large amount of cash!  When a camel is hit at night, the owner is responsible and there is no reimbursement.

Camels are used for meat and for milk.  Supposedly the meat is delicious and much more easily digested than beef.  We passed a strip mall that was all 'camel meat' restaurants.  No we didn't stop!  

Camel milk is very healthy we were told.  It helps to clean out the 'bad bacteria' from your stomach.

We didn't try that either although I was tempted by the 'camel milk' ice cream but couldn't get anyone else to warm up to the idea.

I did buy this camel-milk chocolate camel.  I'm saving it for an 'after the quarantine' celebration!

I think these camels were used to the tourists as they practically posed for us.

Have you ever seen such cuteness as these baby camels?  I have never seen such dark camels, almost black.

Just adorable....and very interested in the tourist paparazzi! 

Camel races are big in Oman.  The jockeys were once children but after a couple of children were killed this was made illegal.  Now they use robots.  Seriously!  The robot jockeys are remote controlled so that the amount of whipping the camel, to either speed up or slow down, can be monitored.  Crazy!  A racing camel can sell for $5-10 million dollars but one recently sold for $30 million.  I read that a race horse sold for $70 million.  Can those numbers be real?

Thought I'd end with a couple of Arab 'camel based' wise sayings.