Very Like a Camel

Driving down the coast from Mizartan, Rich and I begin seeing triangualr road signs with camels on them. These are terrific signs with a big black camel on a yellow background. Terrific, I suppose, in a campy, kitschy way. But anyhow, we both decide we have to gets photos of these signs. Not so easy to do. For one thing, we're travelling in convoy and can't just slow down, nor can we just pull off into the road shoulder since that's made of soft Saharan sand. Then there's the problem of judging the distance so that we get as close-up a photo as possible but don't wait too long and miss the sign completely. And the signs come up at random intervals. We fail and fail and fil, but figure we'll go on trying, since what's mobile phone photography for if not to catch the passing moment no matter how fast it's passing? My photos at worst contain not a trace of the sign; at best, there's a blur of sign that looks something like a camel, or maybe a whale. Then out the window, I see them, a long brown caravan of camels, and I take their photograph. Then there's another caravan, this one loaded with goods. I look at the photos of real camels which are very like camels.

IW