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To The Last Place…On To Djerba Island
“Can I ask you something personal?”, he says from behind his camel dinner, in that way that only an American would just five minutes after introductions, “Do you think the guy who runs our hotel is kinda rude?” Well no, actually, he’s been fine, but, as far as Dennis and his cousin Bonnie are concerned, our maitre d’ seems to have failed to have made a connection. As it turns out, Dennis and Bonnie had spotted something that we hadn’t. In the way that Americans do. Because let’s fast forward now to our departure date, when immediately after breakfast a maid bursts into our room without knocking on the door,…
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Empty Roads, Desert Rain & Mirages: Matmata-Douz-Tozeur
It’s fair to say that the journey from Matmata to Douz isn’t the most challenging foreign drive we’ve ever undertaken, with long stretches of empty road cutting a perfect straight line through the desert. In terms of civilisation, there is nothing: a good hour of roadway passing not a single building, let alone anything as grand as a village. In fact the greatest – maybe the only – challenge is the patches where the sand has covered the road, the tarmac has all but disappeared and the grip of our tyres is about as good as a stiletto on a polished floor. At last we reach signs of life as…
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The Journey Continues: Monastir-El Jem-Gabes
Strictly speaking, El Jem isn’t a desert town, but as we step off the louage from Monastir and squint through the haze, it bears all the hallmarks of one. We arrive in a dust storm – or maybe a sand storm – which makes the whole town shimmer in the heat and minarets and palm trees drift in and out of sight. Flags whip and crack in the stiff wind, the sun is clogged and filtered by the sand which is so concentrated that it’s a bit like looking into a fog. Our glasses and sunglasses are quickly covered in a film of dust, layers of sand particles have coated…
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To A Different World: Kairouan To Monastir
We have barely entered the chaotic louage station before someone spots us – two backpack laden travellers on the move – and points us in the direction of the correct ticket window for Monastir, and as soon as we have our tickets, a second person is there to show us to the right louage. This is just how Tunisia, and Kairouan, is: helpful people everywhere. For those unfamiliar with this kind of transport, the louage and its counterparts in other countries, there is no timetable, the driver simply waits until all seats are taken and, as soon as they are, he hits the road. With a stroke of luck the…
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In Deeper: To The Sacred City Of Kairouan
We feel quite a sense of anticipation as we make our way across the nondescript scrubland plain towards the city of Kairouan and step down from the minibus beneath greying afternoon skies. Indeed, there was a time when we couldn’t even have got as far as this: until being taken by the French in 1881, Kairouan was strictly Muslim only with all others barred from even entering the city. It is today the fourth most sacred city of Islam after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, tradition stating that seven pilgrimages to Kairouan equals one pilgrimage to Mecca. The Great Mosque of Kairouan (aka the Mosque Of Uqba) is widely accepted as…
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The Wider Tunis: Carthage, The Coast And More
The teenage boys are just as boisterous on the train now as they were half an hour ago performing outrageous gymnastics on the beach, which in itself is pretty impressive, particularly if they’re practicing Ramadan and leaping around like that when they can’t even take on water. Now, on the train, they jump off and run from carriage to carriage at each station, open the doors while the train is moving, swap shirts and throw bags at each other: we just smile at the fact that wherever you are, whatever the culture…..boys will be boys. We are on the short suburban railway which runs out from Tunis, across the water…
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The Doors & Shops Of Tunis
Doors and shops. Now there’s two things which hold a fascination for many travellers. Doors because they just do: there’s something irresistibly photogenic about them. Shops possibly because they are a familiar concept whose distortion by different environment is such a tangible measure of a different culture. Tunis has delivered so much on both fronts that we thought we’d interrupt our commentaries with this gallery. Doors first….. And on to the shops….. And to finish, a few mosaics from the walls of the Medina….
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Tunis: Where Cultures Meet But Ramadan Rules
Tunis airport does its very best to compete with Delhi and Agadir as the most tortuous passport control we’ve ever experienced, and comes very close indeed to being the most chaotic. Having left Camp Sunshine at half past midnight to take flights through the night and early morning (Hurghada-Cairo-Tunis) such scenes weren’t exactly top of our wish list. With minimal airport staff to control the crowds, chaos quickly breaks out and any semblance of a queue soon dissolves into a free for all where disorder rules and tempers fray. In the end it’s only a few minutes short of two hours before we’re finally reunited with our backpacks, during which…
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Red Sea Coast And Other Stories
We wander around the unfamiliar territory of a resort hotel like two kids on their first day at a new school, not knowing what we’re meant to do or how the whole thing works. When researching where to stay round here, we’d had to Google the term “animation team”, as it meant nothing to us. It’s one of the things on our learning curve now. The barman speaks to us in German and is amazed when we say we’re English. He’s delighted, too, whispering that he’s a bit fed up with bad manners and it’ll be nice to have some “polite English” to serve for a change – make of…
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Egypt So Far: The Not-So-Good Bits
Three weeks into this North Africa adventure and we guess that in a way we’ve hit the pause button. Followers will know that we are now in the previously uncharted ground of a resort hotel, out here on the Red Sea coast, kind of into international tourist territory and outside of authentic Egypt. This is most unlike us, we never thought we’d be taking the resort hotel option, not in a million years. Apart from the practicalities – it was indeed hard to find a viable alternative – it’s fair to say that there have been other influences on this decision which mean that taking a break from Egypt isn’t…
