On Camelback, a Sea of Salt

Peter Forberg

The pink lake is poorly named. From far away, the highly reflective surface looks like any other lake, if not more silvery than most, casting clouds and the canopies of trees into its mirror. Up close, the water is a murky reddish brown, like a watered down mole sauce. But from the right angle, at the perfect time of day, the wind will cause little waves of light to reflect the midday’s overbearing sun, and standing at its shore, one can see a pink glow in the distance, shining like an ethereal sea of pepto bismol. The pink lake is aptly named.

The color is caused by algae. The lake is filled with salt. At a maximum depth of 3 meters, 1.5 of those meters are salt. While I disagree that it is impossible to drown in, it’s mostly for wading. Those who harvest the salt, men usually, cover themselves in shea butter to prevent the salt from damaging their skin. They wade out with their boats and scoop the salt into them until they reach a weight of about a tonne. Then they bring them to shore where they sell the salt to women. Women have first dibs on selling the salt to large companies that then ship it around the world. Huge mounds of salt lay in the sun to dry.

Other than that, I rode a camel. Riding a camel at slow speeds is like riding a horse except that camels are lying down when you mount them. Word of advice: hold on tight when the camel stands up. Anything else is bad for your body.

Last night Nick and I were locked out of our home. This might sound unfortunate, but I saw an owl in full flight. It was full white, with grey speckles down its back. It hopped from electrical wire to electrical wire, full round head turning to the moon and back to us. Our host sister calls Nick “Karma Boy” because she believes that he has bad luck. Yesterday, a man shook Nick’s hands and grabbed mine. We turned to our only other companion and told her to be careful in case we were hypnotized. I’m still thinking about that owl. The mystic. Karma Boy. Goodnight.