Day 8 Chott el Jerid to Tozeur

7 am leaving comes early! The first part of the day was our time to see the Atlas mountains up close. It has been the site of the filming of 2 well known movies Star Wars and The English Patience. Groups of 4 boarded our jeeps – really land rovers. That was our transportation for the next 6.5 hours. 10 “jeeps” in all set out in convoy fashion for the long drive. Our driver spoke a bit of French and no English that we could understand.

It was an education in Tunisian “outback?” driving. I was in the front seat picking up clues. There were these red signs at main crossroads which I think the driver understood to be go fast through the intersection before someone from the other direction does the same. The white line dividing lanes I think means having the midpoint of the car aligned along it. Occasionally he would move a bit to the right. There were signs like camel crossing. We did see a number of camels in the desert during the day that seemed to be lost with no one around. Then we had to stop for a heard of goats crossing. What they could find to eat is a mystery. After driving for about an hour through an absolute desolate landscape we turned and were surrounded by green palm trees. The change to the oasis needs to be experienced. It was a true oasis!

That first stop included a walk on a short trail to a higher location and experience what an oasis is like in real life from a higher elevation. Seeing the stream emerge from the rock and feeds the palm trees that the people tend in an absolutely dry environment was educational. I think the real living is made from the tourists. Of course no matter where you looked there were vendors selling their wares. There were tables of desert roses rocks and multi coloured geodes, scarves, fossils etc. Seems that every turn had a duplicate stand, even up the mountain. The Atlas mountains are not the same as in Canada.

The second stop was at a waterfall. It was not of great height but it was fed by another spring. It had a pretty steady flow. Of course more shops! The caravan headed back towards Tozeur with a few more stops. From a pass we could see Algeria a few miles away. We have seen guards at some of the crossings. They did not stop the rovers but they were carrying rifles. Then a sharp turn and we were crossing a “salt lake” on no defined road! The rovers were driving all over the place but generally in the same direction. We passed one broken down structure used in some film and then stopped at the site for the filming of the English patience. There was not much there.

The final stop was at the site of the Tataouine village in Star Wars as well as scenes from Mos Espa in the later movies. We visited the Lars Homestead the other day. Fake building build with chicken wire (?) and plaster. Very realistic looking until you looked inside the building and could see everything is propped up by wooden beams. Tunisia is currently refurbishing the site as it is a big attraction.

After the awful ride in on the “non” roads over the salt plain, the driver took us over some high dunes (think attraction park rides) but then hit the newly paved road back to Tozeur. That ended the morning portion of the day.

After lunch (we barely made it back in time) we had some free time before heading out for dinner at the Eden Palm of either lamb or camel was to be served during the folkloric show. Mostly music with a bit of dancing tossed in.

Day 7 Chott to Tozeur

Today was not as gruelling as yesterday but SD Tours managed to fill the day. Since we left the northern part of Tunisia and headed south to the area of the Sahara desert, there has been quite a change in the landscape and vegetation. Yesterday we crossed through millions of olive trees stretching as far as the eye could see. Olives is one of the main agricultural products that Tunisia produces. Then as the vegetation became sparser we could start to see more of what you would think is dessert landscapes. Today once we got going it was miles of nothing. We started the morning with a short tour of the shops of Doez. We wonder where is the market for all the baskets, desert roses (sand formations) weaved dresses, mats, carpets and assorted other items that we seem to see in these shops at every stop. The one interesting thing was the man making shoes out of camel hides! We did see butchered camel meat in other shops.

Then we headed out across the largest salt lake in Tunis which seemed to go on forever. This is exactly what you would think of when you hear about a salt lake or salt plain.

It is not really a lake although there is the occasional shallow body of water but a completely flat area with a definite salt looking soil. Mirages were evident as you look across this vast area. In the middle of this area an occasional shop with the resources from the area appeared. They were selling bags of salt that they said came from the area. There were plenty of crystal quartz samples and many geodes on display. We did stop at one “coffee shop” covered in what appeared to be grass. It was extremely interesting in that the owner was selling espressos, lattes, etc. As well as other standard items. He had a modern “coffee” machine and knew what he was doing. We referred to it as the Tunisian Tim Horton's. It was the best latte so far. We finally made it to the “Golden Yasmin” hotel which was a step up from the previous hotel. We had lunch here and a bit of time to settle in since we will be here for 2 nights.

We then went on the optional excursion in the late afternoon which was a “carriage ride” (way better that than the one from yesterday) to the oasis where date palms can be found. Date palms is another of the items that can be found throughout the country. We have had them a number of times in the hotels. The tour (to a “private” grower) went through the process of growing dates. There were 500 female trees on the property and only 2 male trees! We also had a demonstration of how the dates are harvested. The 65 year old bare footed harvester climbed the tree to retrieve the fruit. It was quite impressive of how he did it. The carriage driver then took us into town where we walked through the media (area inside a walled area). This one was mainly used for housing with very few shops.

Once outside we wandered around again taking in the stalls (many selling just dates) as well as the baskets, woven rugs, etc. All in all an interesting day. Tomorrow we head out on jeeps for the “real” Sahara experience!

Day 6 El Jem To Douz

What a long day! Up at 5 on the bus by 6:30 and not at our next hotel until 7. Many miles on the bus today but some very interesting places to visit. After about 3 plus hours we arrived at the first stop El Jem, site of the third largest

Roman Colosseum in the world. Only the structures in Rome and another in Italy seated more. There was room for 35000 plus when it was in use. Today a portion of the seating has been rebuilt for public concerts, etc. El Jem is in the southern part of Tunisia but the town was at the crossroads of 6 routes in the the heart of one of Rome's food baskets. The tour was very thorough surpassing what we got when in Rome. We had a chance to see the area beneath the floor where the wild animals were penned. Only a portion of the seating remains, the rest having collapse over the centuries. We walked up the the highest level which is about 4 stories high. One has to marvel at the engineering know how of the Romans. The structure is still standing because of the extensive use of arches for support and extremely thick walls. Etched on some of the blocks were references to U.S. Troops from WW2 who were stationed there. One was dated 1943 with a drawing of a pistol!

From there is was off to lunch at the place where Star Wars was filmed. It was used in some of the scenes from the first movie in 1976 for the place where Luke lived. Most of the building is underground and some of the props from the house are still in the location where the filming took place. It is now a small (very small) hotel. That was the lunch stop for the day.

Next was a stop at an actual Berber house. The hills have many of these houses that are carved out of the rock. It was a full “house” where generations starting with grandma on down lived. It is still in use today. A tourist attraction but not in the common sense of the word.

The final stop was an optional tour. This one was billed as a ride on a camel out into the desert and watch the sunset. Well sure. We were late and it was a bit cloudy! After the experience Judy had with getting on a camel in Egypt, we declined the beast and took a “carriage” ride instead. The billing was way more exciting than the ride itself. Besides camels and buggies, there were cars, motor bikes and ATV's running all over the place. It is a wonder that someone has not been killed. The ATV's were at full throttle driving all wherever they wanted to over the dunes. We were quite sedate on our buggy! The hotel was close to the camel riding site and we just made it in time for the start of dinner. Tomorrow should be a bit easier. We are only here for tonight which is probably a good thing! A long and interesting day!

Kerkouane And A Preserved Phoenician Town

Today the tour seemed to ramp up with a longer day. We departed at 8am for the Cape Bon area which is the garden Peninsula south of the city of Tunis. It is between seasons here so the area was very dry looking. There were miles of olive trees but no evidence of the garden vegetables except the fields had evidence of having been farmed recently. Before getting to our final destination we stopped to photograph a 2500 year old olive tree. It is the second oldest tree in Europe.

We reached our destination after 2.5 hours on the bus which was the Phoenician town ruins. The site was inhabited in the centuries BC and was destroyed around 320 BC but rebuilt. The Romans destroyed it around 220 BC and it was never rebuilt after that. The centuries buried the site which was right on the Mediterranean as you might expect. It was never reestablished. The result that the grounds were not contaminated by other civilizations building on topic. The site probably held up to 2000 people. Only a small portion is exposed. The area showed signs of an advanced culture revealing luxurious houses with mosaic floors. Many artifacts were displayed in the museum. The overall impression was a well preserved well reconstructed site. The foundations were clearly shown. There was evidence of the houses having a second story.

A short bus ride took us to our lunch shop, a fish restaurant in a small fishing village. The main course was a whole fish served after the fish soup. The soup was good (some opted for a salad). The main plate had the fish looking at me! Some opted for chicken. I gutted and removed the spine. It had a very mild and pleasant tasting. Other than the bones, it was good and an interesting experience. As we headed home we stopped at a place where there were thousands of flamingos. The bus ride home involved a stop at a pottery shop. We came to expect this type of stop on ship tours but not on this one. Again a Tunisian tour company has arranged the tour for SD Tours. Tomorrow will be a very long day – the bus leaves at 6:30 for our next destination. We head south to the Sahara desert and a full schedule until after sunset.

A Day In Hammamet: A Fort and Wine Tasting

Today was our first day of touring activities. A short drive took us to the centre of Hammamet. It is located right on the Mediterranean which means that it has had many different invaders. The main attraction was the Medina. A Medina is the old walled part of a North African town although we encountered the same in Sicily last year. The fortress wall surrounds this old section of town. The medina has very narrow streets with many intersecting twisting walkways. It would be easy to get lost in it but this one was very small.

The upper levels had some very expensive living areas, the lower levels were occupied by old houses with interesting doors. An interesting fact is that the doors have 3 different knockers. A lower small one is for use by children. Bigger ones and shoulder lever are for women to knock (on the left) and a larger one on the right for men. They each make a different sound so the occupant knows who is at the door. If a woman knocks a woman would answer. We did stop at the Dar Khadija very small museum. It had displays of various time periods from Tunisia's history. After that we stopped at the fort. The high wall afforded a nice view of the city but there was not much else of interest in fort.After about an hour bus ride we arrived at the winery for a tour.

Having visited a number of wineries in the past, as a tourist attraction it has a ways to go. We were treated to a wine tasting. A number of bottles of there wines were on a long display table and we just helped ourselves to as much or whatever we wanted. Lunch was in the same room with again long tables in the middle of all the large wine casks. Lunch was OK but it does to upgrade a lot to be a big attraction. We did buy a bottle to have in our room. Dinner tonight was the full buffet as usual. We were treated to a wine or beer by SDTours.

Tomorrow we have a very full schedule leaving at 6:30. Tunisia's garden peninsula and a preserved Phoenician town are on the schedule.

A Relaxing Day In Hammamet

After a really good sleep after the very long day(s) we did manage to get up in time for breakfast. The buffet area is very extensive and it is hard to resist overeating but lunch comes quickly.

Today was billed as a day to relax. The only thing we had on the schedule was a group meeting to review details of the entire trip. Daisy the tour manager went over a few general details for the trip (rotation of seats, covid, etc) and then OMAR the actual guide outlined the entire tour. SD Tours arranged the tour but it seems a local company was hired to conduct the entire thing. That is why Omar is the guide for everything. That is a bit of a change from last year's Sicily trip. There was way too much info at the meeting. For example what will have for lunch next week when we are away from the hotels! The only disappointment is that will not be using the “individual” voice transmitters for the guide which I found very useful last year. We changed some funds into the local currency to have available to spend in the small towns. They have a money exchange in the hotels which is convenient and the rate of exchange is set by the government. I had to go back to the room for a minute and decided to take the stairs back. Unfortunately the door locked and I found myself on the roof! Judy would never have found me but I eventually did find a propped up door to get back into the hotel. I did have a nice view of the ocean! We had a chance to walk the grounds. This is a very large resort judging by the number of lawn chairs next to the pool. We are right on the Mediterranean Sea with a very nice beach. This is a large resort (one of many in the area) and they have a large number of visitors from Europe. We did go for a walk towards the main part of town but stopped short. It is on the schedule with a guide in the next few days. Dinner tonight was the full buffet as usual. Tomorrow we go on our first tour. There is a bit of confusion as to what we will be doing. Our printed itinerary says one things but Omar seemed to flip days. Does it matter?

TRAVEL DAY AND ARRIVAL IN MANNANET TUNISIA

So we did finally arrive in Tunisia. We started travelling on Friday morning. We decided to take the train to Toronto and just enjoy the trip there. After an overnight with our family there (and a good night's sleep) we arrived at the airport around 4 for the first leg of the trip to Paris. It left at 7:45. Our Tour Manager Daisy met us and we quickly had our tickets, luggage tags and were through security. Unfortunately the airline seats you where they want and Judy was a few rows away from my seat further back in the bus. We spent our wait time talking to the others on our tour. We were all wearing our name tags! The Air France plane ride was smooth arriving in Paris aground 8. Judy did snag 2 glasses of wine. In Paris we had a 5 hour layover before out flight to Tunis. Senior Discovery gave each of the travellers a small stipend for food while we waited. It was a long wait after the long trans Atlantic ride and we did get a bit to eat but were not very hungry. Of course all of this was on top of the no sleep because of the red eye flight. Finally just after 2 we boarded for the final flight to Tunis. We were a bit delayed getting to Tunis and then over an hour wait to clear immigration.

I think the immigration agent was taking on the phone (to his girlfriend?). He took forever. We were one of the last of our tour group to finally clear the area. Needless to say we were tired by the time dinner was served around 7:00 local time. We had just finished the bus ride from the airport when it was time for the huge buffet style offering. We managed to eat a full meal and then got to our room. Staying 4 nights meant a big unpack getting our clothes ready for the next few days. After some searching we found everything we needed. There are 37 people on the tour and most seem to be fit enough for the activities planned. We have many from the west (Calgary, Vancouver, etc.) as well as Ontario. We will have one local guide for all site seeing. He has been a guide for close to 20 years so there should be plenty of local knowledge. So everything starts tomorrow with a resort day! We have a group meeting tomorrow and then “Free Time”