This picture is of our final sunrise in the Sahara, those are old Roman ruins on the right, and this portion of the desert as you can see is quite grassy. 

On our last night in Tunisia we were dropped off at the border town of Ben Guerdane.  This is a sizable city, but it’s not in any guide books as basically no tourists come here.  Being about 30 kms from the Libyan border it was the best place to stay the night before meeting our agent the next morning at the Libyan border.  To travel to Libya by law you need to be with a tourist agency, so we agreed to meet ours at the border as we did not want to fly from Tunis to Tripoli.  After checking in, we decided to take a walk around our hotel to look for a small cafe to eat dinner at.  We had 20 dinars on us, and we needed 12 for the pre-organized taxi ride to the border.  I wanted to keep 3 dinars or so in case we needed to phone at the border, which left us with 5 dinars (about 3 bucks) for lunch and dinner.  It was pointless to get more money since the minimum exchange or withdrawal amount would have left us with way too much and since it’s a closed currency we wouldn’t be able to exchange it back.  We were thinking we could eat at like 4pm to merge the 2 meals into one.  Once we got on the main street where some restaurants with outdoor patios are, everyone started to stare.  There were at least 50 men (since there are no women that are at these outdoor cafes) sitting there looking at us in silence.  I swear if there was a DJ spinning the music would have ground to a halt.  If one guy had his mouth so wide open in shock that his cigarette fell out, I would not have been surprised.  So feeling slightly uncomfortable we walked around the block and decided to go into this really small shop with baguettes on the counter.  When we walked in the lone teenage boy (about 16 years old) manning the stall looked obviously surprised.  As this was not a tourist town, the small menu on the wall was only in Arabic.  We pointed to the baguette indicating we wanted that but basically no communication was possible.  He ran out to grab a friendly older guy in a suit on the street who could speak French, and he relayed to us that this stall served egg sandwiches and OJ.  We ordered the sandwich and the boy started to pan fry an egg as the older guy shook our hands and said goodbye.  The sandwich consisted of a French baguette, an egg, some olives, and a spicy harissa paste.  When we tried to pay, the boy refused!  I kept trying to give him our money but he kept waving no and wouldn’t accept it, just like the OJ vendor in the non-tourist town of Gabes.  With the money we saved we were able to buy a pack of cookies and some water…sweet!   We ate the sandwich on the roof of our hotel watching the sunset, knowing we couldn’t have had a better final meal in Tunisia thanks to the generous kid.

The next morning we were dropped off at the border.  There was a palpable sense of tension in the air here as people were trying to get through.  Luckily, there were 44 Dutch people also trying to cross when we were.  They had about 15 different orange painted cars/trucks with company stickers all over (big companies like Pringles had sponsored some of the cars).  We had a bit of trouble getting through due to a Visa mishap with the tour company, and they had trouble getting through since there were so many of them and their guide had a ton of paperwork to do.  So basically we just hung out at the border with this group for about an hour.  Their trip was extremely cool; they were taking 90 days to drive from Amsterdam to South Africa for the World Cup!  It was pretty amazing how they could get so many people together to do this.  Some took time off school (they looked like college freshmen), some had unpaid work leave (big age range here), and some looked downright retired (as in they looked 65).  What they all had in common was that they were “crazy” (their own words).  Supposedly 2 years earlier a few of them drove to Beijing for the Olympics and had an awesome time, so this time they organized a trip for the World Cup.  Di and I were thinking that maybe we’d try planning something like that for the Sochi winter Olympics since the Vancouver ones were so awesome.  Anyone want to start recruiting sponsors?

Anyways we finally made it through the border and now we’re here in Libya for the next 9 days.  Wish us luck!

We found a guest house online in Gabes where we thought we would stay for the night, so we emailed the owner asking about availability.  It was full, but fortunately for us she invited us to her home!  Her name is Isabelle and she is from France and she has been living in Gabes for over 25 years now.  Her husband was a dentist and her daughter was in dental school as well so they took us to see his clinic.  Even though we only stayed with her and her family for one night, their hospitality made us feel like we were part of the family too.  She took us around town, and made us an amazing dinner and breakfast.  She also introduced us to a guide (unfortunately she didn’t really know him, and she couldn’t take us since she had other guests from Canada arriving in a couple of days) so we signed on with him to go to the Sahara.  We didn’t really have another choice and I’ll write more about that later.  Gabes is not a pretty place, instead of tourism they chose to promote industry, and its coast line is dotted with chemical factories that emit very visible travesties of all sorts, but Isabelle and her family really made our stay here for one night enjoyable. 

On another note, we travelled to Gabes by local transport known as louage.  How it works is you go to the louage station, where a bunch of vans are headed for different destinations.  You pick yours and get in the van.  The driver waits until all 8 seats fill up, and then he leaves for said destination.  We never waited more than 15 minutes for our van to fill, and it was cheap and efficient.  Not a bad system at all.  When we arrived at the Gabes station, we went to the juice stand to have a glass of OJ while waiting for Isabelle.  The owner made us a great glass of fresh juice while asking us our origin, and as we left he decided to give us 2 free oranges.  We tried to pay him but he would not accept it which was a nice first experience in this town.

Anyways, for those Star Wars fans out there (ahem…Edwin Ho Chi Poon who’s married to Amy and has the biggest Star Wars toy collection ever) Tunisia is the place to visit.  Unbeknownst to us, a lot of the movies were filmed here.  The original inhabitants here were Berbers (I say original, but they still live here, just in more modern digs now) and they built very interesting homes.  In Matmata, where we stayed for the first night of our desert tour, they built what’s called Troglodyte homes.  They basically dug underground caves connected by tunnels and courtyards and lived there.  We stayed in one for the night, and it was actually pretty cosy and warm.  Anyways, back to Star Wars, one of these underground dwellings, now a hotel, was used in 4 of the films.  It was where Luke and his uncle dined in the first Star Wars, and it was also used in the newer 3 films.  Then there are the Ksar, these Berber houses where long barrel like rooms were stacked on each other (the above picture is a good example).  In all of the movies they were used as slave quarters.  There’s a town here called Tataouine, and George Lucas liked the name so he adopted it for one of the planets.  In one scene Luke contemplates life looking at two moons over a lake, and that lake is a huge salt-lake (when we saw it there was basically no water and just piles of white salt all over, but at certain times of the year it fills with water and is supposed to be a pretty amazing site) named Chott El-Jerid.  And you remember those pointy hooded robes that the Jedi like Obi Wan wore?  Well the Berbers all over North Africa wear them all the time.  There is a lot more than what I’ve listed here, and there are guide books for the Star Wars tourist out here.  Believe me the Tunisians are milking it, as every sight has tacky banners indicating what was filmed there, and small souvenir shops clustered around all the spots.  I guess George Lucas didn’t have as vivid an imagination as I thought, he just saw the things he liked here and put them in his movies.  Too bad the Berbers didn’t break into light sabre fights as we were sipping our mint tea, smoking our sheesha, and watching them walk by.  That woulda been outta this world, outta this world!

Since Tunisia is on the Mediterranean, there are a lot of towns on its coast.  Instead of moving from town to town, we decided to just pick one between Tunis and the Sahara and stay for a few days.  The one that seemed in the books to be the most charming and off the beaten path was Mahdia so we made it our next destination.  We checked online for hotels before leaving and found one on expedia that looked to be a pretty good deal, rated as a 5-star and it included breakfast and dinner for 60 something bucks a night.  Too good to be true?  Well, sort-of. A common town layout in Tunisia is to have the town proper and a Zone Touristique (zone for tourists if you can’t figure that one out) a few kilometres out.  These zones house mammoth hotel complexes where a huge amount of Europeans (mostly German, French and Italian with a few Brits) arrive on weekly charter flights for their all-inclusive Mediterranean fix, not unlike our version of Mexican or Cuban resorts.  Our hotel ended up being situated in the heart of this zone.  We took the train from Tunis and arrived at the hotel by taxi, where we were greeted by a security guard at the gate pretty much asking us what the hell we were doing there.  He was very surprised when I told him we had a reservation, I guess not many patrons in the Mahdia Zone Touristique have backpacks or look like us.

So again, 5 star out here is slightly different than 5 star at home (I don’t think torn bedsheets or carpets would really justify a 5 star rating) but for the price we really couldn’t complain.  This massive hotel was actually extremely busy so I had relatively high hopes.  After checking in we were herded into the buffet dining room for dinner and I realized that everyone had hotel bracelets on except us.  That meant we were at an all-inclusive resort.  Yay.  There were a few very young couples there (they looked like they were 18 and this was their first girlfriend/boyfriend trip), and there were a few young families, but the overwhelming demographic was the retiree.  Think Magda in “There’s something about Mary”, but add 100 pounds and an equally over-tanned, white haired, largely overweight husband.  Every day we sat at the same table to eat and we would think that these people could not get any more tanned, but sure enough the next day they were a darker shade of reddish/brown.  Di just wanted to tell all these people to “Lighten UP!”  (Get It?  That joke works on 3 levels, it applies to their weight, their complexion, and how serious they looked when they were eating their mountain of food…That’s exactly how she explained her joke to me) There were 6 massive counters of food at the buffet, and only one pot each meal that was a “Tunisian specialty”.  Since we were on half board, our drinks and lunch weren’t included, but evidently we were the only ones in that category.  Wine was definitely flowing at lunch and dinner, and alcohol of all sorts was flowing at other times for everyone else.

All our neighbours at dinner didn’t speak much English, and we weren’t partaking in drunken German karaoke, so I can’t say that we really met anyone there.  We did however do the hour walk to the little town centre of Mahdia each day to relax, and that was quiet and very pleasant.  There was a free shuttle for the all-inclusive customers to go into town but it never left its parking spot due to lack of interest.  The town was basically tourist free and had a very laid-back atmosphere.  Our next destination was to be Douz on the edge of the Sahara, so we booked an excursion with the resort to get us down there, without planning on returning like the rest do.  However, ours was the 3 day excursion and the night before we were to leave we were told it was cancelled because we were the only 2 that signed up…out of all the people in Mahdia!  There are a lot of all-inclusives in the tourist zone in case you were wondering and the lone excursion tour company picks people up from every resort before departing.  I guess leaving your buffet for 3 days wasn’t very popular.  So that’s left us in a bind, and in a mad dash to figure out how to get to the Sahara we’ve decided to go to Gabes first and figure it out from there.  I don’t know how people can do this for a full week, just looking at the buffet one more time would make me nauseous.

Di and I went to the Bardo museum yesterday in Tunis.  It houses the world’s finest collection of mosaics taken from Roman ruins in Tunisia, including the one shown in the picture.  That is one of the poet Virgil holding a copy of his Aeneid, with the muses Clio (History) and Melpomene (tragedy) on either side.  Unfortunately, the museum is undergoing renovations and expansion, which means we didn’t get see half of the collection.  That was too bad because what they had I really enjoyed.  So instead of spending a few hours there, we were done in about 90 mins.  As we left I decided to hit the bathroom.  While doing my thing at the urinal I heard someone exit the stall behind me and walk right into the next stall.  Then he laughed and walked out and said to me in French that he thought that was the exit.  He was probably about 80 and couldn’t have been more than 5 foot 2.  I was still at the urinal but I told him in French where the exit was and I motioned my head to the only large open door leading outside.  You have to understand that this was comical to me because the bathroom was tiny, 2 stalls and 2 urinals.  I obviously didn’t laugh though because, well, he was super old.  So he shuffled out the open door, but then immediately decided to come back in.  I was just finishing up but he wanted to then know why I was able to speak French!  I told him I studied it in school as I was zipping up my fly, and he responded enthusiastically by telling me he thought that was great.  As I moved 2 steps over to the sink to wash my hands, he shuffled backwards but continued talking to me.  He apologized for not being able to speak Chinese and asked me if I had been to France.  He basically followed me out the bathroom and back into the lobby excitedly asking about my life story.  Not only did I show him the bathroom exit, I was also a French-speaking (albeit poorly) Chinese guy, and I re-united him his tour group (by pointing to the 30 other people with matching red buttons in the parking lot 15 feet in front of us).  I think I made his day.

We’ve now landed in Tunis in the country of Tunisia, the 4^th of our journey.  Tunis is on the Mediterranean on the North African side, so we’ve decided to have some relaxation on the ocean for the next few days before we head into the Sahara.  The above picture is from our balcony, and yes, that’s a camel!  I always pictured them surrounded by oceans of sand being ridden on by turbaned Arabs or Berbers, not aimlessly wandering in lush greenery 100 ft from the Mediterranean.  While watching it I was grasping how ugly a camel really is.  It doesn’t have the graceful power of a horse, or the elegance of a giraffe. It’s just goofy and clumsy looking!

Anyways Tunis is a pretty nice city, and far more modern than those we saw in Morocco.  Its main boulevard, Avenue Habib Bourghiba really looks like the Tunisian Champs-Elysees.  Di and I had a fantastic lunch in one of the cafes there, and if we weren’t surrounded by Tunisians we could have easily been in Paris.  The decor and menus are straight out of a Parisian cafe, and all the waiters speak French to you.  Given that a lot of these North African countries were French protectorates (ahem colonies), French is far more useful than English here.

Yesterday we spent the better part of the morning in the ruins of Carthage, one of the great cities of the ancient Mediterranean world.  For those who are into Greek/Roman mythology or history, Carthage has an amazing life-story.  Virgil’s Aeneid tells the tragic love story of Elissa (Queen Dido) of Carthage and King Aeneas of Rome.  Hannibal, who some argue was the greatest military commander in history, lived here.  He almost brought the Roman Empire to its knees, and he ruled Italy for about 15 years.  Anyways I’ll briefly summarize the cities’ history here:  The Phoenicians founded it and built a great city, but eventually lost it to the Romans.  They in turn razed it, and eventually built another gorgeous replacement that was one of their Empire’s 3 most important.  The Vandals then came and trashed it and rebuilt it as their capitol for their short-lived kingdom.  Briefly after the Byzantines took over, but shortly after that the Muslims came to rule.  They governed from Tunis however, and left Carthage to agriculture, and today the remains are in Tunis’s nicest suburb (30 mins from the city).  So for today’s visitor, you get to see the ruins of 4 destroyed cities spread out over a couple square kilometres, with modern day mansions and villas in between the sites.  I admit my imagination is not vivid enough to create images of grand ancient cities over the ruins which are not much more than a few broken columns and some really old bricks.  The mounds of bricks are huge, I’ll give them that, but they’re still just big brick mounds.  It doesn’t help either when they’re surrounded by boatloads of Mediterranean cruise patrons, and there are hundreds of them.

So after Carthage Di and I went to check out Sidi Bou Said (only 10 minutes away), pretty much a Tunisian Santorini.  The buildings of this little cliff-top village are all white with bright blue window grills.  Its architecture is Spanish Muslim and really quite pretty, and the streets are narrow and romantic as you stroll through them over-looking the azure ocean.  It’s all picturesque until 8 tour buses arrive, like clockwork, every 15 minutes from the cruise ships.  So ya, we didn’t stay long here either unfortunately due to the crowds, because on a quiet day I’m sure it’s extremely beautiful.

So now we’re back at the hotel, and as I look out the window the camel’s gone.  Who knows what I’ll see out there tomorrow?  I’m hoping a liger.