With hundreds of kilometers to go and still many sights to see, we got our wake-up call at an ungodly hour. But seeing the sun rise on the Sahara totally made up for it:
First stop, a freak of nature: snow in the desert!
Just kidding; that's actually salt. There are several salt "lakes" in Tunisia: not so much lakes as huge deposits of salt which are, for the most part, dry in the summer and muddy in the winter. If you look closely, you'll see the lake next to me is red; something about the different chemicals can turn the water blue, green, or other colors.
I had to laugh at this sign, seen at the salt lake souvenir shop:
"Màs barato que en Carrefour." Translation from the Spanish: "Cheaper than at Carrefour." I had no idea Carrefour [a French-owned Wal-mart-type store found in Europe, South America, and Asia] sold multi-colored desert roses!
Next stop, a carriage ride through an oasis. (I wish I could remember more town names; the Arabic is difficult to retain). It wasn't just a little pool of water and some palm trees; it was several kilometers of greenery, much of it fruit trees tended to by the families that share the land. We saw an old man climb this tree with his bare feet:
And this is what dates look like before they are harvested in the late fall/early winter months:
Unfortunately, this is where the fun ended for yours truly.
Enter the Tunisian toilet.
In case it wasn't clear in my previous posts, the bathrooms in Tunisia are not the picture of cleanliness. Without going too much into detail: toilet paper and soap are rare (nothing a little Kleenex and antibacterial gel can't take care of), the toilet probably won't be flushed (OK, I'll need one free hand to pinch my nose and shield my eyes), and there will probably be some gross standing water on the floor (game plan: roll up pants, use other free hand to hold purse and other belongings). Oh, and have a dinar prepared for the attendant!
The bathrooms at the oasis were nauseating, but I was relieved to find a small roll of toilet paper. Problem was, I was trying to get out of there so fast that I fumbled the roll. Typical. "Save the toilet paper!" I told myself. I leaned down, and just as it was within reach, I heard an inauspicious "plop!" Sure enough, there were my sunglasses, which just a second ago had been hanging precariously on my shirt.
GULP.
Now, my sunglasses are totally replaceable. I got them for less than 10 dollars at Target. But I was painfully aware of how much I'd miss them in the sunny Sahara, so I took a deep breath and fished them out.
Luckily, there was an edge of soap left, so I spent the next five minutes scrubbing my glasses and sharing my misery with all the hand-washers wondering why I was hogging the sink. Thank goodness Alan had bought me a wide-brimmed hat a day before that, because that's all you'll see in the rest of our Tunisia pictures. I will never look at those glasses in the same way!
You can breathe again; I'm dropping the subject for good and moving on to the better parts of Tunisia.
more salt
more camels!
more Star Wars scenery
Next stop: another beautiful oasis.
nice views from the top
hiding from the heat
squinting, but refreshed by the presence of water and greenery
Here are a few scenes taken from the bus as we traveled home:
Shepherds and their goats
A common sight in each village: men hanging out at the cafe. No women!
Mutton waiting to be grilled
The last stop before returning to the hotel was Kairouan, the third most important city in the Muslim world, after Mecca and Jerusalem.
The man pictured next to the mosque is the country's president, who has been in power since 1987. You see large pictures of him all over Tunisia.
I was fascinated by the advertisements in the bigger cities; women pictured looked very Western and occasionally were not as modestly dressed as the one here:
Just one more installment in this series. Until next time...hold on to your sunglasses!
poor girl, too bad about your sunglasses :/
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