Camel Safari

We set off in our hired green Renault Twingo, which my Mrs inexplicably referred to as a ‘Twingo with a twango’. ‘Thank fuck I’ve only hired it for four days or there might be cause to use the medical card thing after I’ve smashed her in the face with the king size bottle of Malibu after sun’ I thought. The Twingo with a twango had a foldable roof, which we had removed, letting the early morning Lanzarote sun warm our pink barnets on the way to the camel safari.

When we arrived we paid and were each given a shot of hooch, which took the hairs off the inside of my nose when I breathed out. A group of ten people went through this ritual and then we were led to the camels. Me and the Mrs were put on the first camel in the train of five and off we all set off up into the hills guided by a bloke tugging on a rope which was tied to our camel’s noggin.

After about ten minutes we were surprised to see a couple of policemen up in the hills that proceeded to stop our guide and ask him for some paperwork or other. There was a bit of a heated discussion between the three of them and the guide ran off. The coppers chased him for as bit, but the little fella was too quick for them and he was away over the rocks. When the policemen returned they were properly pissed off and came over to me and the Mrs on the lead camel and asked us had we been drinking. She replied that we had had a gratis shot each before we had set off on which the copper produced a breathalyser and asked me to blow into it.

“Why?” I asked,

“Because we suspect you of being drunk in charge of a camel” he replied.

“Everybody else has had a drink why don’t you breathalyse them instead!” my Mrs shouted, clearly agitated.

“Blow into the bag!” he shouted.

“Do one Elvis” I replied.

“What’s your name?” he asked as he took a notebook from his pocket.

“Michael”.

“What’s your second name?”

“Mouse”.

“What hotel are you staying in?”

I gave him a blag name and when he had finished writing he said that we would have to go with him back to the police station where I would be charged with obstructing a police officer in doing his duty and that they were going to obtain a new guide as the previous one was an illegal immigrant and that’s why he had legged it. As we waited sat on our camel my Mrs whispered to me,

“After three, leg it. One – two – “

“Nah love have a minute, we’ll sort it out when we get back to the office”.

After about 10 minutes the new guide arrived and took us back to the start point, where we got off the camel and were escorted to the office. In the office there was an oldish bloke and two young lads who had been walking past us, backpacking when all of the kafuffle was going on. One of the lads pulled out a small video camera and one of the coppers said to me,

“Smile please; you have just been on German Candid Camera”.

Why was that king-size bottle of Malibu after sun in the car just when I needed it most to knock fuck out of the five nuggets in front of me. I’m not sure if it ever got aired on German TV as it wasn’t particularly funny. Although it might have been if my Mrs had of legged it as she was proposing to.

Paul B