Tunisia Trip Day 8

I'm back from Africa and posting the rest of the trip from home.

After a night of sleeping is a stuffy "cave" bedroom, we're off again. Our driver took us to see a few more surrounding hotels, including Hotel Sidi Driss where George Lucas chose to shoot scenes from the original Star Wars. It's pretty run down now (almost 37 years ago) but you can still see some of the sets. Our destination tonight is Monastir which is on the eastern coast... so lots of driving today.


Pool at our hotel


Real Berber-style cave hotel


Hotel Sidi Driss Star Wars set


Goodbye Matmata


Crazy Libyan drivers... though according to our driver, not as crazy as Algerian drivers

The first stop of the day was El Djem, a town with the third largest Roman amphitheater left standing and in very good condition. We arrived in town and had lunch at a restaurant right across the street. Workers were setting up a stage on the floor of the amphitheater; pretty cool that they are still using it as a venue after 2,000 years. There was also a museum nearby where they moved all the artifacts found at nearby archaeological sites.


El Djem amphitheater; maybe Gladiator dude went through here on his way to Rome


Camel nap time


Grilled lunch


Inside the amphitheater


Some figurines at the museum


Mosaics...


... and more mosaics

The rest of the day was spent driving to Montasir. We did make one stop to see the mausoleum for Habib Bourguiba, the founder of modern Tunisia. Afterwards, we drove to our 5-star resort for the night, Hotel Amir Palace. Once again, I was very disappointed: tired looking rooms, room right over hotel disco (loud music until 2am), room smelling like cigarette smoke, and no air conditioning. Tried to change rooms but front desk guy was less than helpful. Wifi also only available in lobby and sucked; there appeared to be only one wireless router and hundreds of people were trying to connect. Lame.


Mausoleum for Bourguiba and his extended family


Not sure what these were but they were in the same square as the mausoleum


Moonrise over fort


The person that is handing out official hotel ratings should be fired... I've stayed in real 5-star hotels before (Mandarin Oriental, Shangri-La) and Hotel Amir Palace is barely a 3-star in comparison

Around The World Tour on Private Jet

$108,000! Fly around the world on a private Boeing 757 and meet rich people.

Stars

I took this with my Sony RX-100 at Ksar Ghilane early in the morning. The Milky Way is visible but faint; I could barely see it with the naked eye. This came straight from the camera without any post-processing.


Stars... lots and lots of stars

Tunis Trip Updates

It's Sunday morning at ~2:50am and I'm wide awake. Hopefully since the returning flight was to the west, I'll get over jetlag in only a few days. I've also downloaded all the photos (all 1,542) from my camera/cellphone to my computer so I'm adding relevant photos to each post, plus some minor edits since I typed the original text on my iPad.


Sahara Desert

Tunisia Trip Day 7

(10/12/2014: updated with photos)

Do the Tunisians have something against air conditioning? We've checked into another hotel and once again the AC does not work. At least the fan is working, otherwise it would be a lot worse because the room is basically a cave with no ventilation whatsoever. Who designed this craziness? Right now I have both windows (bathroom and entry) open but they open out into the hallway so I'm a bit worried about security. All that work and I'm still sweating in bed. Either the hotels in this country suck or our travel agent is ripping us off. So far, the trip is good but not worth the $1600 for land only; I paid another $1700 for airfare. Could of had a luxurious week in Hawaii or Japan (ok, maybe not Japan) or anywhere, but instead I'm slumming it in North Africa.

Claustrophobia!

Anyhow, since I'm typing already, I'll summarize today. We left the desert oasis at 8am. Breakfast was more sand baked bread: good but gritty. I had actually got up at 4am to take some night sky photos. We were hoping that the moon would set, and it did, giving us about 60 minutes before the rising sun obscured all the stars. We weren't disappointed... the stars were awesome. I don't think I've seen so many stars in the sky since the Navajo STM trip out to Shiprock, NM many years ago. I took several shots with my Sony RX-100 using manual mode at f/1.8 and 30 second exposures. It was only later that I upped the ISO to 800 and got more dramatic but grainier photos.

Big Dipper


Orion


Jupiter at top center


Desert sunrise

On the way to somewhere after breakfast, we stopped to check out a traditional Berber house. The family still lived there on the side of the road. I know it's their "culture" but it seemed like a dreadful way to live, huddling in literally holes-in-the-wall. It was unclear if the chose to live that way, or the can't afford to move to one of the nouvelle settlements. I don't think I can live like that. We then stopped by our hotel for the night in Matmata to drop off our luggage, then headed off to Chenini. Our driver thought our itinerary was a bit crazy, driving back and forth across the country.

Traditional Berber house


Grinding for couscous


Entrails drying in the sun... yummy!


Cave kitchen with some modern amenities

After hours in the road, with the sun on my side of the van, we arrived at Chenini, which is a large Berber village set into the hillside. We ate lunch at a restaurant at the bottom of the village. The meal was pretty good but relatively expensive at 20 dinars per person, and sodas were 2 dinars for a can, which is more expensive then the US. After lunch, with one for the local village children (so he says) as a guide, we climbed to the top of the village. The sun was out most of the way so lots of good pics but I was sweating profusely again, and barely made it back down in one piece. Our driver told us that while we were gone, VIP visitors from Beijing arrived with a police escort, and the special family was touring the same site.

Traditional Tunisian brik with egg and parsley


View up the hill from restaurant; we ended up climbing all the way to the top


Hey, can you give me a ride up?


Really old Berber woman


According to our young guide, the town was built in three tiers with newer construction at the bottom; most of the families have moved out to a new town several km away


View back towards restaurant


View from rooftop of highest house; the white building is a mosque about 400m up; we were about 600m or ~2,000ft up

Since we spent so long climbing up and down, we didn't have time to visit some Star Wars shooting sites. George Lucas shot some desert scenes around Chenini and Tataouine, which became Tatooine in the movies. We then drove back to our hotel in Matmata, choosing a different but "shorter" route. It began as a paved road but as the sky grew darker, the road conditions switched randomly between pavement and dirt as we drove over the Matmata Hills. It was a bit nerve-wracking driving in the dark. Finally arriving at out hotel, we had a poor buffet dinner, then found wifi access in the lobby, so I uploaded prior posts to this blog and also some pics from my phone to Facebook for an hour.

Excuse me... is there a cantina nearby?


Out in the countryside, you see the oldest pieces of French junk still driving around on the roads

I read in Lonely Planet that our hotel, Hotel Diar el-Berber, was a high-end hotel. Sigh... no AC and I've hit my head twice on the ceiling already.

Tunisia Trip Day 6

(10/12/2014: updated with photos)

The Sahara Desert. It's hot and sandy and really big. For some reason, the closer we are, the less chance that our hotel has working AC. This is irritating since we paid extra for AC at our desert camp, and also having an en suite bathroom. I don't care much about the bathroom but really wanted the AC.

I'm lying in bed typing again. We're staying at a place called Diar Ghilane which is a small "hotel" at the northern edge of the Ksar Ghilane oasis. Of course there is no WiFi so I'll have to upload this later. Today began in Tozeur and after breakfast we drove through the Chott el-Jerid salt lake to Douz, stopping along the way at a natural hot spring. This water is cooled then used for irrigation and probably feeds the towns. That's why the water in this part of Tunisia smells like rotten eggs. Man, it's hot here in the Sahara, even at night.

Each room had a name; mine was El Mida


Water from the rain last night, otherwise it would be all dried up


Help, I need water


Building to cool the hot spring water; it was steaming at the top but cooled enough at the bottom for us to soak our legs in pools


Further cooling before sending the water to town

At Douz, we visited the Sahara Museum which is really just one room of exhibits but the AC was nice. We then stopped at an camel/ATV/ultralight rental place; a few of us rented ATVs and a guide took us a bit into the desert. It was pretty fun though I didn't get to drive that much (2 people on each ATV) but I did shoot some video as a passenger; I will edit an upload when I get home. Next was lunch at a small family restaurant with the same three traditional Tunisian courses: soup (usually tomato based), fried pastry filled with egg, and a meat/couscous dish. This time it's chicken, all for 15 dinars/person.

Berber tent display


Adventure!


We chose ATVs over camels and ultralight flights


Chicken couscous... family style

After lunch, it was more driving though the desert until we arrived at Ksar Ghilane. There was a large group of French tourists here already but I think we are the only people staying at our site/hotel. Since we're right on the edge of the desert, we hiked over some sand dunes and took lots of photos, and waited for the sun to set. For dinner, the hotel manager/cook showed us how the nomads made traditional bread. Basically it was dough buried in sand and palm tree charcoal for 20 minutes. It was pretty good though a bit sandy. They served us soup and lamb stew with vegetables. I don't really like lamb but this was ok.

Camel crossing


Spring fed pool at hotel; the water was warm


Wanna ride?


Desert view from hotel rooftop


Sunset/moonrise over desert


Making traditional bread by burying dough in sand and wood charcoal; wish he spent a bit more effort brushing off the sand after taking the bread out of the "oven"

For the last hour, another person in our group and I were trying to take pictures of stars since we're in the middle of nowhere in Africa. However, there was still a bit of light pollution, mostly from a 3/4 full moon. We're getting up at 4:30 am to try again.

Too much moonlighht