The Barqash Camel Market and the Bouleq Clothing Market

Early Friday morning, Morgan, Sam, Brian and I trekked out to the Barqash Camel Market.Piled into a microbus full of what I suppose must have been camel traders, we headed out to explore the largest camel market in Egypt. After a 45 minute drive through green fields, we encountered the most camels I’ve ever seen in my life (and I’ve been in Egypt awhile). We slowly wandered our way through hundreds of animals, mostly from Sudan and Somalia, while the men in their traditional headwraps and gallabayas (long robes) huddled in groups and bartered with each other. I thought we might get some unwanted attention, but it turns out that camel traders are pretty friendly people, and they either ignored us, or welcomed us (and answered questions when we asked).

Conclusions: camels are big. Usually they’re ugly, but I think I’m starting to be able to pick out which ones might win the camel beauty contests they have in Saudi Arabia. They make strange noises. Thankfully, they don’t kick. However, they do kind of drool a lot, and we discovered that when they make a pyramid pose with their hind legs, you want to get out of the way to avoid getting sprayed with camel pee. We almost got trampled a few times, but camels don’t move quite as fast as stampeding cows or horses, and we survived. We learned that the little camels generally become food (I think I may have eaten more camel meat here than I care to think about), and the big ones become transportation. Sweet experience for us, just another day at the market for the camel traders

*****

On Saturday, Morgan and I explored the Bouleq used clothing market. It was my first time, and I can’t believe I didn't discover it at least two years ago. Thrift store shopping paradise! After many racks of clothing, I found and played the bargaining game for this:

(That’s $3.00 worth of flowered maroon velvet)