Tunisia
Arrived at the airport in Tunisia with Martha, backpacks and nowhere to stay. Caught a taxi into Sousse. Got ripped off by first Taxi driver, 2nd and 3rd tried it too but knew currency by then. Found a small hotel in the Medina in Sousse. Nice room but no air con. Wed 14th July the day we arrived was Martha’s 18th birthday so we went out for a meal in the evening. Decided to move to a hotel with air con as it was so hot. booked a 3* for two nights in Sousse tourist area. Air con didn’t work, managed to get it fixed (6hours later) then would you believe the hotel had two power cuts – no air con or lifts, pool was nice though. The majority of tourists in Sousse at this time of year appear to be Algerian and as they are Moslem the women are covered up from head to toe with only their faces showing it was quite amusing to see so many of them in the sea, as they go in fully dressed. We were going to make our own way south towards the desert but as it was so hot we decided to book an organised tour for two days. There were 9 of us on a mini bus, air conditioned, and a driver and guide. We visited the Coloseum in El Jem. The area where they filmed star wars in Matmata, The underground caves called Troglodytes, had our lunch in one of them, brik, couscous and figs, We arrived in Douz in the Sahara desert about 4pm. We did a short 40 min camel ride into the desert but that was long enough as the heat was too much. We had to dress in Berber costume and I have a lovely Dawn French look alike photo. Stayed the night in Douz in a lovely 4* hotel. We had to be up at 4.30am to visit the salt lakes and then we had a horse and cart ride through the Oasis in the desert at Touzer. In Touzer the temperatures reach 46c in the shade by midday so we had to be there early and away by 9.30am. We took a train journey through the Atlas mountains which are considerably lower than they are in Morocco. Visited Kourian the religious centre of Tunisia before returning to Sousse. As we didn’t have a hotel in Sousse we decided to move onto Monastir and the Mini bus driver dropped us off at the side of the road where we caught the local bus. Found a lovely little place in the Lonely Planet - Hotel Mezri, nice room air con and view over the sea. Went out on a pirate ship the next day, great trip BBQ and dance music, was so funny watching people trying to dance on the boat. Spent the evening playing cards with some of the crew in a bar in Monastir. Went an has a Hammam, so relaxing before the trip home.
Posted on Monday, July 26th, 2010 at 12:34 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
