Our Wild Journey Travel diary

Tunisia

Thursday 23 october - sunday 26 october 2008

...finally after 23 hrs our feet touched African ground for the first time and after 1 1/2 hours of "being welcomed by the customs" we lost ourselves in chaotic Tunisian traffic at nighttime, passing whistling police officers (although they have traffic lights!), veiled women and cafes full of men watching the road. As it's bad trying to find a campspot in an unknown country at night we followed Marian's hint about a reknown camping in Bourdj Cedria, about 20 km from Tunis. There, parked under nice-scented cedar trees we took our first welcome drink with Marian, wishing each other happy travels and good experiences. All in all we stayed there for 3 nights, reorganizing the car and taking a deep breath before starting our "wild journey".....

Sunday 26 october - wednesday 29 october 2008

Sunday morning, our African crossing started in Tunis' famous "souks" where we practiced bargaining for our first lunch - flying fish! :op With full stomachs we drove towards our starting point of our long way south - "Ras Ben Sakka" which is close to Bizerte.

During 2 days we desperately tried to find this supposedly northernmost point in Africa as described by Wikipedia and other tourist guides. Tired and disappointed that not even the locals could help us finding this point we finally came across an old man who could give us the right explanation: "Ras Ben Sakka" was named after an old family ruling the area for a few hundreds of years, then, after a new family came, they just renamed the cape...which is now called "Ras Endjela"! At last!!! Happy about this new info we found the place - but couldn't go there because it's a military area!

Through very idyllic backcountry roads, lined by eucalyptus trees and the sea in the background we continued our way towards Tabarka, one of our next stops known for good snorkelling. We came to a place where there was a lot of pottery alongside the road, we stopped and bargained hard with 2 girls and a woman for a nice piece of work. We were happy with our purchase until these people got greedy and wanted gifts and more money! We found ourselves surrounded by begging kids came and if there is one thing we dont like, it's begging kids! Without words we escaped into the car and speeded off - it left a bad "aftertaste" in our mouths. What a shame!

Wednesday 29 october

As usual in Africa, finding something isn't always as easy as it seems...we were looking for the road to the apparently quite nice Cape Negro, but how to get there? Some locals pointed us this way, some locals that way...do they know their area or not??? When we finally hit the right track it was close to sunset and we had 12 km of stony track (walking pace!) ahead of us...we decided NOT to continue and made camp on a cow paddock somewhere in the middle of nowhere. After quick food we fell asleep - travelling is a tiring business! :o)

Something woke us up in the morning, the "mooing" of cows and a VERY old man staggering up to our car - what a wake up call! Rene talked to him by hand and feet and he minded his own business. Just after breakfast 3 guys came out of the close by forest, sat under a tree next to the car and watched our morning business - Tunisian TV! :o) We packed, said "the show is over" and left...

It didn't take us long to get to Tabarka where we did some shopping and changed money. We wanted to go snorkelling but there was a cold wind blowing and so only our legs tasted the salty sea. So instead we thought we could have a look to the Algerian border, which was only 15 km or so away. The road climbed high up on the cliffs by the sea, giving way to amazing views of the area. Up here, there was even more wind and we had to put jackets on, it got colder! Then we passed through green, misty forests without people or animals - only solitude...we felt like at the end of the world! Andrea was a bit worried about kidnappers jumping out from the bush (at least, that's what they tell you in Europe!) :o) The border police was quite amused that we really only came to see the border (we had no visas!) and were laughing.

We headed back and from Tabarka on we went towards Bulla Rigia to the old Roman remains there. In daylight we decided to only have a look from outside and to move on. Instead we followed a hint of some people to go and see the "Table de Jurgurtha", to which we wanted to go through El Kef, a city built on a mountain with old, white washed houses and an ever confusing medina. The roads in this part of the country close to Algeria are just breathtaking, ever changing colors and landscapes...and lots of rubbish! :o) Tunisia at its best!

Thursday 30 october - Saturday 1 november 2008

The "Table de Jurgurtha" is a big flat table mountain about 10km from the Algerian border, to go to its top we needed to register with the "Garde Nationale" and would have to stay there with a guardian for our "security". A stony track leads up to its top and there is a little village at it's foot - Kaala Es Sinan. We went through and in half darkness were stopped by a man who gave us 2 lighters and a "Welcome in Tunisia" - a local shop owner! :o) He told us how to reach the top where our guardian would wait. In the vanishing light we were surrounded by massive, surreal stone piles and rock formations and the track didn't seem to end! When we reached a straight spot just under the plateau we met Hedi Ben Mohammed and his dog, our guardian. We were alone there, the wind was blowing and even at night the view was spectacular! We had a meal and after some talking with Hedi we went sleep. The next morning Hedi took us to the plateau, which was undermined by caves and holes, he told us that these date back to Roman times and were used to live in. On the table's 46ha surface people even grew wheat, had a village and a mosque there! Quite impressive! What a wild place to live! And from up here the view was just undescribably beautiful! Back in the village we had a chat with Jaouad (the guy with the lighters) and a lovely old man and went on "pilgrimage" to Kairouan, the 4th holiest city in Islam. 7x pilgrimage to Kairouan is like 1x to Mekka! We spent the night outside town on an olive plantation and had a little look the next day - the usual: mosque, medina and the likes...)

Saturday 1 november - Monday 3 november 2008

From Kairouan and all these days inlands we wanted to relax a bit on the beach, so we finished the zigzag to come back to the sea, to Sousse. This town is horribly touristy, we didn't like this "mass tourism style" at all (for package tourists it's probably THE Tunisia!) and wanted to get to Mahdia, still quite touristy but a lot calmer and even with empty stretches of beach. We camped somewhere close to a plantation again and got up early the next morning to see Cape Africa right in the heart of Mahdia's old town. Or better: right in the heart of a muslim cemetery! :o)

We had our breakfast there and watched a guy snorkelling and catching octopus...Rene got hot to go in as well but first we tried our luck fishing with normal rods. And all the time we found ourselves "surveilled" by an old man - the type of guy to watch porn and young girls! He followed us all day, always sitting and smoking and watching. Andrea collected shells and as usual caught the fish, small, but still better than Rene who, as usual, had nothing. For lunch we grilled camel steaks and had some wine. :o)

For the next day we planned to go to Sfax to do some more shopping (we were still looking for a thermometer and a headlight to replace Andrea's cheap chinese broken rubbish!) We slept somewhere in the vicinity and got to Sfax early the next morning. We parked the car just outside the medina on a lively main road, went for 2 hours shopping and on coming back had to realize that someone broke into our car...the driver's door Rene found open and our stuff inside was a mess! But fortunately for us, the thief couldn't get into the safebox and didn't find our little extra safe under the seat...the first "quality test" for Roman's work! Passed! The next 2-3 hours we spent on the police station, where it looked just like in the 70s, no computers, old typewriters, a lot of smoking officers and all in all quite messy, just the walls were white! :o) As soon as we got out of the station we left Sfax, we had enough of this town! :o(

Monday 3 november - Wednesday 5 november 2008

Again, our plans got mixed up and instead of spending time on the beach we continued our way towards Tunisia's main attraction - the desert! We were eager to see dunes, oases, old traditional Berber villages etc. This day we made it to Gafsa, a lush oasis on the edge of the Sahara. We arrived quite late and instead of looking for a bush camp we went to the Gafsa Camping, a very nice place (like a big garden with palm and olive trees etc) and stopped there for the night. There we met Hasni, the guardian there, a very nice man who had a tea with us and showed us around (well...whatever you can see in the dark...) We soaked our washing for the next day and went to bed. In the middle of the night we got woken up by splashing rain drops on our faces...it was raining horribly and our roof tent had already taken enough water...so we somehow improvised a 2nd tarp and slept in the humid tent. The next morning it still didn't look much better and our mood sank to the bottom - tent wet, most clothes in the washing and no way of making a coffee in this hammering rain! :o( Thank god the clouds soon passed and by noon we slowly came back to life! As always in a camp it was big cleaning time, we needed it, the car and our clothes as well! In the evening we were looking at pictures and again chatting with Hasni.

On the 3rd day we got invited for dinner by the owner Naceur and his friend Bou Sairi, we had yummy "Barcoucach" a tasty meat soup, olives, "Mechouia", bread and salad, and talked about olives, Sahara and people. Naceur still gave us some hints of where to go and what to do. In addition he told us to get a bowl full of his own dates (Arabic Viagra!!) and take olives as well. We were positively surprised! If ever you are in Gafsa, visit his camp, it is a lovely garden and restaurant with typical architecture - an oasis in the oasis! :o)

Thursday 6 november - Friday 7 november 2008

After a refreshing stay here we continued the next morning, first doing all the internet things and shopping, then we were on our way towards Chebika, but on a beautiful side road. We wanted to see Tamerza and this little village Chebika. These 2 settlements are set in a mountainous area in the desert, there are waterfalls, gorges and green palm gardens. We followed one of Naceurs hints and had some good typical Tunesian food in "Chedli's restaurant" in Tamerza...the guy serving us offered to accompany us to the canyon of Tamerza, apparently very beautiful. Without bad thoughts we said yes, but after a quick walk through (we didn't have much time) he wanted money from us - 10 EUR! Quite surprised I asked him if it's not for free as we had eaten in his restaurant. He insisted on money. So Rene told him, he didn't have any cash, only 2,50 TD as all the rest we had with us. He seemed quite disappointed but at least his cheekiness didn't quite pay out!

From Tamerza and Chebika we took a pass road close to the Algerian border to get back towards Tozeur, and all the way we were looking for fossils and crystal stones in the rocks...Andrea got the stone fever, wanting to find nice samples! (As if our car isn't already heavy enough!!!) :o) Then our way went through the desert and we got some real nice glimpses on camel herds, even very close to the car!
We slept close to Tozeur as the next day we wanted to cross the Chott El Cherid, Tunisia's big salt pan. On waking up the next morning we decided to visit the privately run desert zoo in Tozeur, we had a guy guiding us through there, showing us the desert fox, scorpions, snakes, porcupines and other creatures. After this excursion to animal kingdom we went for the Chott - but not without buying some more camel meat for the evening!

The Chott El Cherid is quite nice to see, the road goes right through it for about 70-80km, both sides lined by sticky, salty water and glittering white plains. Every now and then there is a "cafe" on the side of the road and once in a while we could see some old car wreck half sunken into the Chott - some stupid probably thought to defeat nature! :o) But these are good for a photo at least!

Saturday 8 november - 10 november 2008

From the Chott it wasn't too far to Douz, where we had to find out that we couldn't go into the desert alone, the tourist police said we have to register and be minimum 2 cars to go for the big dunes but they let us go for at least 5 km away from Douz to sleep in the dunes. Just a shame that we didn't even get this far because Rene got us bogged only 1,5 km outside Douz - and at the best time because it was sunset! :o) So it was time for another quality test for Roman's work - the sandboards! After digging ourselves free we had only a little time to get to a nice camp spot in the dunes - we had a fire, dinner and after watching the stars happily went to bed ..
When we went for washing the car in Douz someone told us that there was a Czech woman married to a Tunisian living here so we stopped by her house to say hello from home...she was not exactly Czech (Slovakian) but anyway we spend a few hours talking and after went -unfortunately- on the asphalt road to Ksar Ghilane, a tiny little oasis settled amongst the dunes and starting point for many "dune riders". We came quite late and because of strong winds seeked refuge in a camping (we bargained for a special price). There we slept amongst loads of French "weekend quad adventurers"! :o)

The next morning we locked the free wheel hubs and went into the dunes, approx 10 km till the remains of an old fort, where we suddenly saw another Nissan Patrol, an orange one from Germany! We had a quick chat with these people and fourwheeldrove our way back to Ksar Ghilane, from where we wanted to cut across to Tataouine, our last station before the Libyan border. But we decided not to take the much longer asphalt road but to take the gravel/dirt/sand road to get there, which was maybe a little harder for the car, but the landscape there was just amazing, not big sand dunes but mountains, little oases, vast landscape and big big nothing around us for hours! Great!

Tataouine was not very nice as a town but we needed to change some money there. As soon as we were finished and it was dark we went 20km back to where we came from to camp behind some boulders close to Chenene, a little village built on and into the mountain, we absolutely wanted to see that! So after being woken up by a passing herd of goats including sheperd the next morning we went and marvelled at this fascinating architecture. People had made caves into the rock, built walls and houses around and the whole village was built on so many levels, it took us some time to get to the top! At one house some woman waved us to come in - we accepted and found a little man made yard, with the house behind cut into the rock. She was weaving carpets and wanted to sell us one, just the price was exorbitantly high! We declined! But later in one of the shops we still couldn't resist to buy a nice lamp from leather! :o) (which we bought after bargaining, of course!)

Satisfied with village, landscape and purchase we had a quick stop in Tataouine for shopping, then made our way to Ben Gerdaine close to the Libyan border where we were supposed to meet our guide the next day. We didn't buy nothing there, only wondered about so many people changing money on the street (we didn't, we waited till Libya) and made camp about 20km away from the border...we still needed to arrange the car for the extra person so we put a food box on the roof - our car would be a crammed mess for the next 4 days!!! :o) Tired and wondering what would await us in Libya we went sleep!

As a final thought we can say that Tunisia for us was a good start into Africa, we had everything from beach to mountains to desert and quite liked our first touchdown on the African continent. Although used to tourist, Tunisia is still full of surprises and wonders and as soon as one leaves the touristy areas he will not only find lots of rubbish (reality!!!), mofas and clueless but helpful people but very friendly and open people, who maybe curious and inquisitive but harmless. Tunisia's landscapes change from lush forests to long stretched beaches, dry mountains to endless white deserts...its towns change from old medinas to crowded souks and even modern areas! It was a pleasure for us to go through this country, to have our first African experience here! :o)