The Berber camp was chaotic but interesting and the Berbers were very nice in fact they were the nicest people we met in Tunisia.They gave us some sort of traditional gown to put on i think they were called souks and helped us on to the camels, which were sort of prone so not hard to get seated but they then get up back legs first. This was a bit disconcerting as you suddenly feel like you are going to slide onto their neck. Once they got up we were led into the desert which was very pleasant. The motion of a walking camel is much more comfortable and relaxing than a horse in my opinion. We stopped after a while to watch the sun set and have a cold drink then remounted for the return journey. This is when the accident happened a young Berber probably early teens was standing on his camel when it bucked and skittered sideways colliding with the camel my girlfriend was riding which then also got spooked and she fell off landing on her back.
It was then that all hell broke loose she was shouting that she was in agony camels were running free and the Berbers were trying their best to sort things out, after a cursory examination they decided to send someone to their camp to get a horse drawn cart because she could not walk out of the desert. When we got to the camp her and I were transferred to an ambulance and taken to the local hospital. On arrival we were rather shocked to see the state of it inside the floor was covered in about a half inch of sand. They decided to xray her back. She was put onto the xray machine in severe pain but the machine refused to work, probably full of sand.They then decided to send us to the regional hospital so back into the ambulance which I’m sure would not have passed a UK MOT. On the journey she complained that something was hurting her back. On inspection it seemed that the stretcher had metal bars running across the stretcher that were not padded so we’re adding to the pain.

To be continued