In the morning, we had the hotel call a cab for us (big mistake – the price doubles – we almost couldn’t afford the fare with our remaining Dinars!). Upon arriving, the Departures Information Board told us our flight was cancelled. I won’t bore you with the details, but chaos ensued. The Air France workers in Tunis could not have possibly done a worse job dealing with the cancellation. We almost saw a fistfight break out between a Tunisian and an American passenger. In Air France’s defense however, when we arrived in Nice (we had been rerouted), we had an employee dedicated to sorting out the mess Tunis had caused, and getting us to Paris as soon as possible.

It was a beautiful day so we finished up our trip by going to Sidi Bou Said. This is a tourist town at the end of the TGM line – an easy 30 minute ride by train from Tunis. It features beautiful white buildings with blue doors (somewhat reminiscent of Greek island architecture).There were lots of souvenirs at very unreasonable prices. We ate lunch at a cafe overlooking the bay of Tunis. We walked away from town and got a beautiful view of the port and beach below. It was certainly a pleasant way to spend a sunny afternoon, and a nice end to our trip.

The next day we headed to the Bardo Mosaic Museum. We went by taxi (LRT is possible, but it wasn’t worth it,

since the taxi is only $3 and much faster). The Bardo is the premier museum for mosaics in the world. It’s a huge museum (3 floors) and every available square inch is occupied by a Roman mosaic. The building itself is quite a sight too – it occupies the former Bardo Palace. We spent about 2 hours here before we were all ‘mosaiced’ out. There’s a little souvenir shop that sells mosaic reproductions, but the prices were about triple what we had seen further south in the medinas (of course, maybe these aren’t made by children…).

The next day, we headed north back up to Tunis. We took a train – there are lots of them from Sousse, and it dropped us right downtown next to our hotel, the Hotel Maison Doree (same place we stayed in on our arrival). We were in Tunis for New Year’s, although we didn’t end up doing anything too exciting. We ended up going out for a fantastic meal at Restaurant La Mamma, (complete with a guitar player singing and playing a very halting ‘This land is your land’ – I bet Woody Guthrie had no idea he was big in Tunisia). We celebrated New Year’s by taking a hot shower.

In the morning we made our way by louage to Sousse. It’s a pretty frequent route. The louage station there is huge – a cavernous warehouse. Outside, we grabbed a cab to take us to the old city. We suspect it was a bit of a circuitous route, but we got there. We stayed in the beautiful Hotel Medina, just inside the walls of the medina. This was the nicest hotel we stayed – it was very recently redone and modern. The only hiccup was that the radiator was leaking on the floor. But given our experiences in other hotels, the radiator is hardly worth a mention! Off-peak, the rate was very reasonable. I really enjoyed Sousse’s medina. It’s pretty big, it’s got a good atmosphere with a nice mix of stuff for the locals, and stuff for the tourists. We visited a few shops selling locally made handicrafts / modern art (nice stuff). We explored some side streets that went up a big hill with a nice view over the ocean (with cafe’s where you can stop and get a view). There were some “fixed-price” tourist shops, with absolutely ZERO hassle and almost every souvenir we’d seen elsewhere. Prices were perhaps a little higher then could be haggled, but for us, being able to take our time looking at everything was worth that extra price.

We stopped at a great Italian Pizza place, way down the far end of Rue el-Maar (or was it Rue el-Hajira by then). (my wife is vegetarian, and that proved quite challenging in Tunisia – pizza was always welcome). We got some exceptionally tasty baked goods at a local price (we had been gouged with tourist prices elsewhere). We tried some olives (you can only pass so many olive trees on the road before developing a serious craving!).

From there, it was about a half hour walk to the louage station. We were told that there were no more Louages headed only to Kairouan, our next stop, as the louages only run in the morning. We ended up paying the fare to go all the way to Sousse (well past Kairouan), and they dropped us off on the outskirts of Kairouan where we got a local cab in to the old city.

We had originally intended to stay at the 5 star Hotel de la Kasbah, thinking that we would treat ourselves after the previous night’s accommodation. But unfortunately, the price we had thought it was, $70 US, ended up being per person. So we headed through the medina, and ended up staying in Tunisia Hotel . It was actually a nice hotel, well located, with hot showers (in the morning). Kairouan is the religious center of Tunisia. We visited the not very impressive Great Mosque (Sidi Okba Mosque), although, as always, non-Muslims are not allowed inside. The town is full of pretty blue-wash painted buildings. There is one main route through the medina, with a few offshoots, but it’s impossible to get lost. There was some horrible sounding tourist trap of a blindfolded camel pulling water out of the ground (Bir Barouta) but we passed. I can’t really remember that much more about the city, which is not a very good sign for it’s worthiness as a stop along the trail.

 remember that much more about the city, which is not a very good sign for it’s worthiness as a stop along the trail.

We were up early the next morning, very motivated to get going. We took a few louages

(with great connections) and a few hours later we were in Sufetula (Sbeitla). The only reason to visit this city is the impressive ruins just outside town. The Louage dropped us off right next to the site. We dumped our backpacks in the visitor’s info center and headed in. The whole site is tree-less, so it must get pretty hot during the summer. The temples at the center of the site are the centerpiece. Apart from that, there are some nice mosaics, baths, and a fully reconstructed amphitheater.

In retrospect, we should have pushed on past Gafsa, but we don’t like traveling in the dark. The bus didn’t end up being a good choice over the louage – even if we had to wait for the louage. The bus was packed, and wasn’t comfortable. We stopped in many small towns. Arriving in Gafsa as the sun was setting, we found our three star

Hotel Maamoun (the highest rated hotel in town). In a word, it was awful. The carpeted hallways looked like they hadn’t been vacuumed in years and were strewn with garbage – like something out of a bad movie about living in the projects. The first room we were offered actually had what looked like blood smeared on the wall. The second room was marginally better. We were tired, and since it was supposed to be the nicest hotel in town, we chalked it up to experience and slept with our clothes on. We walked around looking for a restaurant that was better than the hotel’s restaurant but without success.

During negotiations with the louage driver getting to Douz, the driver warned us that there was an international festival going on in Douz. We had heard this line before, usually as a preface to getting us to stay at the cabdriver’s cousin’s hotel room, which was claimed to be the only room left in town. Except, well, we got there, and this time it turned out to be the truth. Most people make reservations for the International Festival of the Sahara 6 months in advance – and here we were showing up for the Opening Ceremonies without a reservation and without a clue.

We found a payphone – every hotel was full, from the $5 ultra-budget sleep-on-the-roof options to the $250 luxury hotels in the zone touristique. One of the last hotels told us that instead of calling around, we might have more luck in person. Our last hope was hotel El Medina (on rue el Hanine), where again, we were turned down. However, when we expressed our disappointment at having to leave to another city, the lady told us “One minute please…”   In all honesty we really didn’t know what we were even hoping for!  When she came back, she showed us the kitchen staff’s room, which we happily took! No hot showers, no locks, no heat (and it was so cold that we could actually see our breath in the bedroom as we tried to sleep!). We saw later that the kitchen staff was sleeping on the floor next door – we hope they got a cut of our $40!

The downtown area itself was not that exciting- just a few kitschy souvenir shops in an open square. We headed down to the Place du Festival, an area outside of town, for the opening ceremonies. There is no admission fee. We should have gotten there earlier than we did as the stands were already absolutely packed. We saw camel races, horse showmanship, and the presentation of all the different countries involved in the Sahara Festival.

A hound chased a poor bunny rabbit around the field. One of the camels broke away and tried to break for the desert, but a horse rider finally reined it in. There were riders in traditional costumes of all sorts on camels decked out for the occasion as well.  Not to mention the most amazing demonstration of horseback riding we can imagine.  All in all, it was a pretty amazing display, and lasted two hours. After the show, we were able to go on to the field and get some amazing photos from right next to the performers as the sun set. (Although our photos paled in comparison to the French guy we met who was passing himself off as a journalist, so he could get on the field itself during the performance!)

There are also some sand dunes in Douz, and it seems that every camel (regardless of its health) had been pulled in to meet the festival demands. We passed on the camel treks. If you want impressive Saharan dunes (like you saw in Lawrence of Arabia), we would suggest heading to Morocco instead.

There were many more events and competitions in the next few days of the Festival, but we decided to move on.

Our next stop was Douz. In about 2002, they build a new road directly between Douz and Matmata. Until then, it had been necessary to loop back up to Gabes, and go through Kebili. What used to be a 3 hour journey – more depending on the louage connections- now takes about one hour. The only catch is that there are no public buses or regular louages running between the two cities. The only way is to organize a private taxi, which costs about $60. We found a few people to split it with (this probably won’t be a problem, as the backpacker route frequently heads from Matmata to Douz).