[Sam Kapasi]

We spend some time, all of us in the desert, marvelling at the quiet beauty. The 2 spanish girls are fun, one of them is hyperactive and quite full-on, not necessarily in the best of senses.
One needs a bit of respectful peace in the tranquil desert and though she's a nice person, that bit is a bit lacking.

Amongst the various things packed for us is some whiskey. Looks like fun. The evening is a bit cold, as the desert is always around that time.

The Israeli man and the spanish girls want to light a bonfire. The camel guys have all gone away and are planning to spend the night with their camels around. We are left mostly alone on the dunes.
I am the only one that speaks fluent hindi and the camel guys had already discovered that I was born in Rajasthan and we were getting along famously.

The boys advise us against a bonfire, telling us that it's a terrible idea. They explain that the creatures that normally live under the sand by day would be attracted to the bonfire. The firangs do not listen and finally the boys go forth and get us some brush, dried cacti and some twigs they find. Enough to start a small bonfire.

Soon we collect around the fire, passing the bottle around and regaling each other with stories of travel. I'm carrying my massive maglite with me. The one that's about half a metre long, lol and I'm shining it into the desert marveling at how far the light carries. What fun!

The whiskey is almost over and the full-on spanish girl is a bit drunk. Soon the rajasthani men come by to check if we're OK and they sit down near us. The Israeli man ask them if they know any desert songs. They oblige and both burst into a beautiful nomad tune in Marwari. It's fun and we all clap along. The spanish girl gets up and starts dancing around the fire all alone with a beautiful look on her face. The flames look like they're licking her face. She is a little drunk and obviously enjoying herself. Well, why not?

I'm chatting with Dom & Faye, they are truly a lovely couple.

Suddenly I feel a quick movement near my hand and reflexively pull back turning around. It's a HUGE desert beetle, one that looks like the scarabs from the movie "The Mummy" (YetiNote: Of course, the movie wasn't made then, lol) . Not nice. Suddenly I realised that many people were jumping up from where they were. 1, 2, 3, 4... We counted almost 6 such scarabs crawling instinctively to the fire. They were truly huge. The spanish girl looks a little bothered by the beetles and sits down a little further away.
We quickly throw sand on the fire, putting most of it out.

These don't bite really, there's no reason to be afraid, but it feels a little funny to have these crawling amongst us.

Suddenly the Rajasthani boy jumps up and slams his chappal clad foot on something near the fire. Bichchu he yells and we look curiously. A little scorpion, no bigger than my pinky finger. He's killed it with his foot and quickly picked it up, throwing it into the embers.

I see another small scorpion and slam my maglite on it killing it. Not nice of me to do that, it's their desert, not mine.
Everyone is quiet. It's best we move away from this bonfire quickly.

It is dark, we walk a bit towards where we've kept our beddings. We have no pillows and sheets and we're taught to sleep on our hands, to keep the ears off the ground level.

The sky looks truly beautiful and I am able to see multiple layers of planets and stars.

To be continued.