Camel rides: Great Wall / small circus

With all the grace of a sack of potaotes perched on a washing machine balanced on a rock pile, I have ridden horses, elephants, mules, and camels. The best was in Egypt where, since no one cared about safety or the loss of a tourist, I got to gallop across the desert under the pyramids.

In 1984 China (top photo), tourists were not that common, but there was this lonely camel and its handler against the backdrop of the Great Wall just waiting for me.

This tiny traveling circus (bottom photo), with its lugubrious camel, was a vestige of an era before mass entertainment. The trapeze artist sold popcorn during intermission. And after her performance, the trick pony rider went to a corner of the building—used as a hockey rink in winter—to nurse her new baby.

The circus animals included of a couple of camels ready for kiddie rides, an enormous snake that small boys delighted in handling, and some horses. Animals have long been part of circuses, but it is only recently that we have seriously questioned the ethics of caging wild animals and forcing them to entertain us. It was a relief not to see the sorrowful plight of performing big cats and elephants.

A few years later, when the circus was long gone, the rink became the source of one of Vermont’s earliest large Covid-19 outbreaks after (it is believed in town) one person who knew he had been exposed to the virus, lied about it and played hockey. More than 120 people were infected.

Some circuses are better than others.