Tied to a boat. And floating in the sea thanks to the air accumulated in their stomachs. This is how the ancestors of the camels that currently take tourists through the Timanfaya National Park arrived in Lanzarote from Africa six hundred years ago. The story is from the veterinarian Francisco Fabelo, who last week, invited by the Academy of Sciences and Engineering of Lanzarote, reviewed the past, present and future of these animals in a conference.
Fabelo is not only a scholar of the camel. He also acts as a defender. And, in his opinion, it is not possible to understand the development of the island without taking into account the contribution of the camelids: "Few people have realized the importance that this animal has and has had. Do we consider the action of man in such emblematic landscapes as La Geria? but this would have been impossible without the contribution of the camels".
Although biology and the dictionary determine that in Lanzarote the word dromedary should be used - because the animals that populate the island only have one hump - the truth is that in the Canary Islands the term camel has traditionally been used, which is precisely the one used by Francisco Fabelo when talking about its potential.
"The activity currently carried out by camels in Lanzarote, as transport for tourists, is an activity that specialists from other parts of the world, who have visited us, consider unique," explains this veterinarian. But the walks through the Mountains of Fire are only the tip of the iceberg, if we speak in terms of use and profitability: "There are many camels, especially in Asia and Africa, that are profitable doing other jobs very different from tourism".
Camel races, which move millions in bets in Saudi Arabia, are just one example. But there is more: "Leaving the bets aside, there are countries in which the camel is an extremely valuable animal for milk production". The hair and leather are used for textile purposes, specifically through the production of warm clothes. The medicinal use of hump fat is also part of the list of camel benefits, which has become the main laboratory animal in developed countries in the East, according to Francisco Fabelo, due to the peculiarity of its immune system. "It is said that the cure for many diseases may involve generating antibodies from the camel itself to use them in human medicine," says this scholar.
Yaiza as homeland
Yaiza is, today, the small homeland of the nearly four hundred Lanzarote camels. They live, like thousands of people on the island, from tourism. But this is a relatively recent activity, developed for only forty years. In their curriculum, over several centuries, these animals have accumulated many other merits. "Until the explosion of tourism, camels were an indispensable element in the island's agriculture, mainly when there were no cars or trucks," says Fabelo.
The camel not only plowed the land. It was also responsible for transporting the products from the field to Arrecife so that, from there, the onions, watermelons or Lanzarote wine would reach the rest of the islands. The landscape of La Geria or the terraces of the north of the island respond, in part, to the work carried out by these animals, which also acted as construction workers. The oldest still remember how the camels carried water to the houses, before the supply network existed, or how they acted as taxis when a patient demanded the presence of the doctor in any corner of the island. They even collaborated with the postal service not too many years ago.
But the trip to the past, on the back of a camel, can go back to 1405, the year in which, according to scholars, the first specimens arrived in Lanzarote from Africa. It was dangerous for them to travel on board, so they did so tied to the side of the boat and arrived in the Canary Islands floating in the sea, thanks to the air accumulated in their four stomachs -explains Francisco Fabelo- and their ability to hermetically close their nostrils. And they did so, in addition, preceded by their power in the desert. "Camels have been with us for a long time. They are practically the age of the conquest".
When making the first incursions into Africa the lords and masters of these islands in addition to capturing slaves brought camels. The Moors they captured were in charge of maintaining them and they were, precisely, the first camel drivers of Lanzarote. With them there was a demographic explosion because it was the ideal animal to work on an island with the dry land conditions of ours," says this veterinarian. In his opinion, the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries constituted the golden age, in Lanzarote, of these animals, whose census reached the outstanding figure of five thousand heads.
The "ship of the desert"
A camel is capable of transporting a merchandise equivalent to its own weight. That is, if an animal weighs 300 kilos, it can carry as much on its back. It is capable of surviving in conditions of extreme aridity, without drinking for weeks. That is why, among other things, camels are nicknamed "ships of the desert" in Africa.
Although it is normal for them to consume 16 liters of water in 24 hours, they can also go days and days without drinking. "In those cases they would take water from parts of the body that other animals cannot. They would retain water from the urine itself. In addition, they do not sweat and are able to mobilize body fat to extract water. Of course, after days without drinking they can take up to 70 liters," details Francisco Fabelo.
Its stomach, in addition, is an authentic factory that allows it to take advantage of what it ingests to unsuspected limits: "They transform long straw into energy, there is no need for grain intake. The ration of a working camel, like those of Timanfaya, is composed of wheat straw, which is a cheap food, and depending on the effort we demand from it, it is good for them to take some cereal".
