The African Queen, or Adventures in Tunisia (part 1)
This will be a special, two-part entry, as there is way too much to "erzaehlen," as the Germans would say, in one blog.This trip just proves again that I travel hard. I'm the kind of person who needs a vacation after my vacation, because I like to be on the go and see everything while I am visiting a place. We certainly did our best to fulfill those goals while in the Northern African nation of Tunisia! Here is a day-by-day photo-journal of our marvelous "spring" break vacation :-) (and by "spring," I mean early February.) By the way, just to warn you, this is a mighty long entry :-)
Day 0 - Monday
The night before we left, the group (Kim, Kelly, Jeff, Ted, Danny, and myself) headed over to Kim's for a pre-trip dinner (and a dessert of chocolate chip cookies. Yeah, those didn't last very long!) Ted, Danny, and I spent the night at Kim's because of our early start on Tuesday morning. Kelly and Jeff were close enough to walk, so they stayed at Kelly's.
Day 1 - Tuesday
Wake up call at 2:30am. Yikes. But when 4 people are using 1 bathroom and have a 4am pick-up time, that's just what has to happen :-) Miraculously, the airport service, our group, and Kelly and Jeff all managed to rendezvous at the correct time and place, and we made it to the airport by 4:45 for our 6:15 flight. Unfortunately, at that time of the morning, none of the airport coffee bars are open, so we basically sat around in a state of 3/4 sleep until our flight started to board. We landed in Nuremburg around 7:15 and had a little over an hour to kill before our flight left for Monastir (a small coastal town in Tunisia that boasts the airport serving European tourists.) When we landed there around 11:30am, we had been up for 9 hours and were feeling the short night, so it was a very good thing that our "package trip" included transport from the airport to the hotel. We were able to just hop on the bus and sleep for the next 2 hours.
We arrived at the hotel around 2 in the afternoon, and we basically just explored the area within walking
distance that day. The beach was about 5 minutes away, and since February in Tunisia boasts an average temperature of around 65 Fahrenheit, there were decidedly few beach-goers, which was very nice. We were staying in the town of Hammamet, which is the main tourist area of the country during the summer months, but since we were there in the middle of the offseason, it was (thankfully) not packed with Northern European vacationers. The hotel was very nice (especially given what we
paid for a week there!) Here is a photo of the view from our balcony (obviously the swimming pool was out of commission, but it was a nice area to walk around.) The other photo is of the beach near the hotel. It was beautiful, and empty! Our empty afternoon was nice after such an early morning, I must say! We had dinner at the hotel (buffet breakfast and dinner were included in the price), and it was surprisingly tasty! After eating, we all hit the hay (this would prove to be a theme over the course of the week :-D)Day 2 - Wednesday
The city of Sousse is the 3rd largest in Tunisia, after Tunis and Sfax. It is located on the coast, and is about 20 km north of Monastir (which means, it was about an hour and a half from our hotel.) When Ted was still in college, his French professor was visiting for the year from her usual position at the University of Sousse, so when she found out we were coming to Tunisia, she invited us to her city for the day, which was fantastic - our first real day, we had a native Tunisian as our guide :-)
Before arrivi
ng, both Kim and I did some research on the country (yay Lonely Planet!), and we found out that the best way to travel between cities is actually in shared taxis, called louages. They are extremely cheap (about $3 for a destination 60km away), and they take 8 people, so our whole group could fit in one louage. On this first day, however, when we got to the louage station in Nabeul (a town about 3km away), we got sucked into taking the bus (it only happened once because we didn't know what we were doing :-P) Which means, we did NOT end up where we originally thought we would, and we had to wait for Ted's friend, Fatma, to come pick us up. While we were waiting, I saw a dog hanging out on the roof, and I deemed it photo worthy.Once Fatma arrived, she called her husband to come pick us up. Somehow, we fit 8
grown people into a VW Golf for the ride back to their apartment (see photo of where Kelly and Jeff had to sit), where we had a deeeeeeelicious lunch (Tunisian food is very tasty - usually consists of couscous and a spicy stew, with o
ranges - the best oranges I've ever tasted in my life - for dessert.) Their home was beautiful, but it was very atypical for Tunisia, which has its fair share of poverty-stricken people. Like all buildings in Tunisia, Fatma and Ritha's had an absolutely beautiful, ornate door. I don't know if fancy doors are Tunisian or North African, but I've never seen doors like this anywhere (they are even better than the doors in Dublin, which are also famous.) Here is a photo of Fatma and Ritha's door.It was very interesting to talk to Fatma about something that was a little worrisome to us - the uproar over the Danish cartoons. I mean, it seemed like every time we picked up a newspaper, another European embassy was being burned in another Muslim country. Luckily, as Fatma explained, in Tunisia is a very westernized (if not the MOST westernized) country. They have even changed their day off from Friday (the traditional day of worship in Islam) to Sunday, to coordinate their economy with the western world. This also means that they are more tolerant than some of the more fundamentalist countries. When I asked her about the Tunisian reaction to the cartoons, she replied that Tunisians were upset about the blasphemy, but they deal with their anger singularly and internally rather than in groups and mobs, which means that there were no demonstrations or riots, and we never felt that we were in any sort of danger. Thank God. But it was still a little bit intimidating.
After lunch, Fatma and Ritha took us to see some of the sights of Sousse. First up w
as the medina, or the old walled city. Every major city has a medina, and they are all very cool. First off, they are usually all pedestrian, because the streets are too narrow for cars to fit through. Also, the medina is where most of the souks, or shopping areas are housed. Here is a photo of one of the souks in the medina in Sousse, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The other photo is of the outside of the medina, which was also very beautiful. The walls looked like what you would imagine castle walls to look like. They had towers and cre
nellations and what looked like murder holes ;-) Anyway, we spent a little bit of time walking through the medina, and we stopped by an exhibition depicting scenes from typical Tunisian and Berber (the Bedouins of North Africa - the people here before the Arabs came) life. After our tour, we all piled into the VW Golf again and headed to the port of Sousse for some coffee, since it was such a beautiful day. Finally, Fatma and Ritha dropped us off at the louage station, and we managed to actually take one back to Nabeul and home to our hotel, where we had dinner and headed to bed early (see? I told you - a theme) because we had an early start the next morning.Day 3 - Thursday
Thursday morning at 5:15am, we were picked up by the Eden Tours bus for our 2-day "Desert Safari," during
which we would cover about 1500 km, see several sights all over the country, and ride camels in the Sahara desert (which is actually a redundant name. Did you know the word "sahara" actually means "desert?") Anyway, we, along with 8 other people - 2 British women and 6 obnoxiously and habitually late Italians, arrived at our first stop around 8:30am. El Jem is a small town,
but it houses what was once the 3rd largest amphitheater in the Roman Empire. Ironically enough, the amphitheater, which at one point could seat 30,000 people, could hold more people than actually live in El Jem. Here is a photo of the outside of the amphitheater. Inside, we were able to explore a bit - we climbed to the top seats, and we were able to see the tunnels underneath, where animals, gladiators, and Christians were kept before fights. Here is a photo of the inside of the amphitheater. It was at El Jem that we had our first taste of "being had" by Tunisian merchants. When we got off the bus, a man with a camel asked if Danny wanted to take his camel's photo. After Danny took the picture, the man told him that such a privilege would cost him 1 Dinar. That isn't a lot of money, and Danny paid, but this is where we first realized that we had to be careful about such things, because people won't necessarily tell you up front that they are going to charge you. I learned this the hard way later.After El Jem, we loaded back into the bus and headed out for the town of Matmata, where we had lunch. Matmata is better known as
being one of the areas where Star Wars was filmed. It is an old Berber town, and people here still live in troglodyte homes (aka...in caves.) After lunch, as part of our tour, we got to visit the family home of one such family, and let me tell you, it was an uncomfortable exercise in voyeurism. I know the family is paid to have visitors, but it was just a weird feeling, going to someone's HOME as a tourist destination. Anyway, all discomfort aside, it was interesting to see how they live. The caves are actually small rooms hollowed out of a stone hill, and they are meticulously clean. All the rooms open up into a center, outdoors courtyard, so it is impossible to go from room to room without going outside. This photo shows the "front door" of the home.After Matmata, we headed to the town of Douz, which is known
as the gateway to the Sahara. In Douz, we were given the option to go for a ride on a camel, so of course, we all said yes and paid our 18 Dinar for an hour and a half jaunt into the desert. After getting all saddled up and mounting our camels (which is a rather exciting enterprise, I must say), we headed out. Here is a photo of Jeff and Ted on their camels (and my camel's head) going towards some dunes. We rode for about 45 minutes, and then we took a rest. About 20 minutes into our trip out, we had been joined by a man on a horse (the horse was wearing some sort of crazy decorations), and a man on a camel with a fancy saddle. When we got to our rest stop, the man on the horse came over to me right after I got off my camel and offered to let me ride. I, being a very trusting person who likes adventure, took him up on it right away, and he hopped up behind me, and we went for a 30 second gallop. When we got back, Kim hopped up and they did the same thing. At the sa
me time, the man with the fancy camel had Kelly up and walked her around in a circle. After we three had had our rides, they came over and told us that we each had to pay 5 Dinar. Now, again, that isn't a lot of money, but it is just wrong to not tell someone up front that you will charge them, and they definitely took advantage of us being dumb tourists. I didn't have any Tunisian currency on me at that point, so I gave the guy 10E for us, and that was that. I don't begrudge the money, because it is only 10E, but still, it definitely added a sour flavor to our camel trip. Oh well, you live, you learn, and that is a mistake I'll never make again. Our ride back was nice. We got to see the sun set over an oasis (see photo), and after we got back, we headed to our hotel for the night, where we had dinner and went to bed (with yet another early morning ahead of us.)Day 4 - Friday
Wake up call came at 5am. Again. Blah I want to sleep in. That is, I wanted to sleep in until we reached our first destination - Chott el-Jerid, which used to be a ginormous salt lake, but is now just a great, dry, flat area with salt in the soil. We made it about 15 minutes before dawn (the pre-sunrise colors were phenomenal - see phot0), and we got to watch the
sunrise. Frankly, it was the most beautiful sunrise I've ever seen (not that I've seen too many, but this one even beat out the sunrises in the Grand Canyon.) Here is one of my (many. too many.) sunrise pictures. We also got to do a little shopping at the place we stopped, and I bought a Berber bowl (hurrah for souveniers!) Anyway, it was a lovely start to the day, that's for sure! I don't mind waking up that early, as long as there is some pay-off.After dawn, we headed towards the town of Tozeur, which is an oasis town near
the Algerian border. In Tozeur, our group of 14 split up into 2 4-wheel-drive Jeeps for a drive out to two oases - Tamerza and Chebika. It was a fun trip out there - we went off-roading for a bit, and we got to do some (very little) hiking at both oases. It was rather interesting to note that one of the oases was in a canyon that looked like it could be a side canyon off the Grand Canyon (wow I just used the word "canyon" three times 
in one sentence. Oops.) Also, here is a photo of our group in front of the mountains that mark the border between Algeria and Tunisia. And just to scare the you-know-what out of parents, look where we were as we drove back to the city of Gafsa meet the bus :-D In case you didn't notice, that's a road sign pointing towards the Algerian border, 8 km away. Mwahahahaha. We tried to convince the driver to take us to the border, which is apparently an open
border in the desert, but he was a good employee and wouldn't give in to the dangerous whims of young, stupid Americans (oh wait, I think we told him we were from Toronto.) Actually, this is a good time to mention our strategy of telling people we were Canadian. We thought this was a good idea until we realized that none of us could remember the name of the new Canadian prime minister. Oh well.
After the Jeep tour, we had lunch at a beautiful hotel that was completely tiled on the inside. Floor, walls, ceiling. Check it out. After lunch, we had a long stretch of driving ahead of us to Kairouan, which is the 4th holiest city in Islam, after Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem. We were only there for a few minutes, to check out the Great Mosque. After that, we headed back to Hammamet, and we arrived just in time for some dinner and some bed. It had been a long couple of days, but they were probably my favorite two days of the trip. As much as I enjoyed the time we spent in the cities (Sousse and Tunis), I just liked the peace and quiet of the south much better. I'm soooo glad we were able to do this tour, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in going to Tunisia :-)Okay, this is the end of part one. I've been typing for about 3 hours now and I'm tired. Part two will come tomorrow, along with pictures on my photo website :-)
P.S. Anyone who can name the reference in the title (without googling it!!) wins a special prize :-D
posted by Carly Fowler @ 2:30 PM
3 Comments:
movie with katherine hepburn/humphrey bogart where he took her (she was a missionary i think) down an african river (the nile i think) on a steam/paddle boat & i think it was the name of the boat as well. do i win a prize
thanks honey for the great travelogue--sounds like a fascinating trip (but glad i didnt know you were that close to algeria)! cant wait for the continuation & pix tomorrow!
That's daddy's favorite movie and they were on a boat called that and it was great!!! And i didn't look at mommys...it's just that she gets up earlier than i do.
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