Tunisia

Monday 2/9

After leaving the cold and complicated border of Algeria, I was happy that we were inside and weirdly first in line at the Tunisia border. The immigration officer spent an inordinate amount of time looking at every page of our passports. He looked each one twice through, so the queue behind us grew quickly. We had to go through 3 other check points before we made it into the country.

Twelve kilometers later, we were dropped at the closed train station with the goal of food and coffee. It turned out that this was more challenging than expected. Eventually we got a warm brick of flavorless fried dough and scalding flavorless coffee, not purchased from the same store, because you can’t buy food and coffee from the same place for some reason. Watching the storks in their giant nests towering over the town was the highlight. Thankfully, the train departed to Tunis on time.

Our train was a little late so we rushed to the window to see if we could catch the next train to but it turned out that it was an hour late. Great, we thought as we found lunch and prepared for the next leg. One hour late turned into 2, and when it reached 3 hours late, we explored a driver but when we discover it would cost 100€, we sat back down on the train platform. We discussed taking a shared taxi but then we’d still have to wait for the taxi to fill before we set off. Four hours was limit and I said if the train didn’t arrive at 4pm, we’d take the shared taxi. The train showed up at 3:56. Late, but ok, I told myself. We only have 2 more hours to go. Except it was 5 hours. A taxi to the old souk, and the proprietor walked us through the twisted pathways to the hotel. I was so tired I think I was hallucinating.

Tuesday 2/10

The hotel room was room was elaborately decorated with ottoman Knickknacks; think I Dream of Jeannie’s bottle. An anemic space heater aided in drying our clothes but offered no bodily warmth. When asked how hold the hotel building was, the proprietor said no one knew because it existed even before the Roman’s arrived. The breakfast was lovely and we took a morning stroll through the old souk.

I lost my sunglasses in the taxi to the airport where we were supposed to pick up the rental car. At the airport, Budget rental agency didn’t have a counter so it became a comedy of errors trying to get our car. Once that drama was resolved, we drove to the Monastir Fort where a scene from Indiana Jones was filmed. Or next stop was the amphitheater of El Gem, a smaller but better preserved version of the coliseum and it was easier to access all parts e.g. nose bleed sections and the rooms where the gladiators prepared.

We then had a 3 hour drive to El Siddes hotel where it was the film location for the interior scenes of the Lars Homestead (Luke’s childhood home) from Star Wars episodes 4 and 1. It was cheesy but interesting in a developing-country kind of way. We spent the rest of the evening looking at the Star Wars paraphernalia since there was no WiFi in the room. We stayed in The Yoda room, with each room being named for a character. There were several ankle breaking opportunities getting from the bed to the bathroom, with multiple elevation changes and steps. Asleep by 9:15…

Wednesday 2/11

…and awake by 2:45am. Sigh. The sunrise walk around the neighborhood was lovely and after breakfast, a guide imparted knowledge of the area. The museum was a traditional Berber home that was filled not only of Berber items, but WW2 items. 

The theme of this Tunisia trip was the Punic War, WW2, and the war against the Empire. The next WW2 stop was Rommel’s bunker which still had the swastika symbol emblazoned over the Italian fascist symbol. A half hour later, we visited the Museum of the Marath line. We were the only visitors and there were at least 4 soldiers. I wondered if they considered their posting as favorable or a punishment. We saw footage from the battle of the Marath line which I had never seen and was chillingly up close.

Our final Star Wars stop was visiting Annakin’s childhood home. We drove 2 hours to the car drop off location and strolled to find the bus station. We discovered we had to take a shared taxi to Ben Gueren, our next destination. We only had to wait a half hour before the other passengers collected money from all passengers to “fill up the seats” so we could be on our way. I thought the trip was going to only be one hour but became two hours.

The hotel rivaled the terrible ones in India: no toilet paper or towels, trash can full from previous guests, soap with hair on the counter, and no top sheet. The bathroom looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in 5 years and we had cots rather than beds. It was only $15 but it was the 2nd best around. Hard to believe the best would be that much different. We ate a Tunisian calzone equivalent and walked around to buy sweets and toilet paper. The marzipan cookies had just the right proportion of softness and crispness.

Thursday 2/12

I woke up with a sore throat and wondered if it was a cold or irritation from the air quality.

The taxi to the border was only a half hour. Even at the Tunisian border, they wanted our Libyan visas so this did not bode well for an easy crossing. We were ushered to a bench and told it would be 5 minutes (hint, it was not 5 minutes) as we watched our passports be passed from person to person, walked into various buildings, and traveled down the road for various inspections and scrutiny. Everyone was very nice except for the pigeon that pooped on me. An hour and 50 minutes later, we left Tunisia and met our guide/police escorts who thankfully took care of the Libyan border crossing in only 10 minutes. Grand total border crossing: 2 hours.