Tunisia Part 2

This is the view from our hotel balcony. Obviously not warm enough to sun since I am wearing a coat, but what a view.

Sunset our first night in Tunis. We walked along the beach for a while and took in the sights. It reminded us of the beach area in Puerto Vallarta, except January in Mexico is generally crowded because that's when all the Canadian snow birds go south.

This is the hotel we stayed at in Hammamet. The Yasmin Beach hotel. It was nice and beach front. It did set me to wonder what it must be like there in the spring, summer would be too hot I think, but spring and fall must be very busy.

The Bab Bhar or Porte de France on Place de la Victoire; this is the main entrance to the Tunis medina. At this point you should have your breadcrumbs or stones or twine ready, because this is where you enter the huge maze of crowded streets that make up the famous Tunis medina. The Tunis medina is designated a world heritage site. It was constructed in the late 7th century. We were befriended by at least 3 guys who tried to scam us into some shop or other. Here's the scam: you are approached on the street by a guy who 'works at the hotel' or (as in our third 'friend') speaks your language. (We got tired of being bothered by the questions 'Are you...[insert nationality here] I speak..[insert appropriate language here]' we finally started telling them we spoke spanish. This backfired with friend #3 as he was fluent in Spanish) You are then told by your new 'friend', that he knows a place where you can see the medina from a rooftop; a 'must see' view! Or 'This is your lucky day', because today is a holy day and they can take you to see some of the sites usually reserved for believers only. Don't be that gullible, they try to get you into a shop where they'll get a cut of whatever you buy. Getting away from these would-be guides was tough enough; I can't imagine how hard it would be to get away from the shop keepers! Again, it was a matter of keeping our heads down and feet moving. This is where I began to be told that I looked Arabic; such charmers these men.

A shop in the medina. How cool is that.

After the medina we went to Carthage to see some Roman rubble ...I mean ruins ...um..I mean history, yeah history. This is the Musée National de Carthage it houses a small collection of Punic items found scattered around the site. Most of the items are of the household variety; combs, razors, pottery, jewelry and some weapons. The ruins themselves are scattered with broken columns and statuary.

Sean with a bust of some Roman royal dating back to the 5th century or something like that. This is on the second floor of the museum. This is where I was, once again, trying to extricate myself from yet another would-be tour guide. These guys hang around the museum and wait for an unsuspecting tourist. Once they identify a likely victim they come up as you look at the displays and begin to explain what stuff is (as if you couldn't read the placards yourself.). You are then expected to tip them for their helpfulness. Yet again, you have to be rude and tell them to go away to make them stop. Or just saying point blank 'I have no money' might work, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that one.

The remains of a Punic city on Byrsa Hill in Carthage. This is where most of the items in the National Museums' collection were uncovered.

The Acropolium (Cathedral of St Louis) was built by the French in 1884 on Byrsa Hill. It was de-consecrated years ago and now serves as overflow exhibition space for the Museum. The pastel colors are so not 'Catholic church' but more middle eastern. You can climb to the second and third balconies inside; though there's not much to see up there.

Now the Antonin Baths on the other hand are more than just 'more rubble'. They are rubble with personality and lots of great photo opportunities. Built in the 2nd century they were the third largest baths in the Roman Empire. All that is left today is the foundation, but the whole site is chock full of columns and pillars and tunnels. Exploration is at your own risk. We saw one or two signs warning not to walk or climb on the ruins because they are, after all, crumbling, but this didn't stop many people. You have to wonder at the strength of construction that would last this long. They are not in this state because of poor materials or construction though, they were, like many ancient sites, scavenged over the centuries for their superior building materials. The same thing happened to the Colosseum in Rome. More of it would still be standing if people hadn't come in and stolen blocks for their own construction projects. Oh yeah, that's me there in that photo.

More Antonin Baths

Yet more Antonin Baths...no, that's not original 'bath' water, it's rain water.

And yet more Antonin Baths...and S down at the end of the little tunnel.

From Carthage Sabih (our driver) took us to the little sea side village of Sidi Bou Saïd. Very picturesque and very Mediterranean n'est pa? We were walking to the top of the hill to the little cafe for some refreshment. Down in the bottom right hand corner of the photo can you see those little white bird cages? They come in all sizes, I wanted to bring a big one home because they were so cute but (A) they wouldn't fit in my suitecase...oh wait, didn't have a suitcase yet at this point...yep on day two of the same outfit. And (B) I hate birds. Birds in cages are just wrong and they are so stinkin messy.

Yep, I had a Coca Cola at the cafe. That is what it says on the bottle isn't it?

These gorgeous doorways are famous in Tunis. I bought some watercolors in one of the shops of Sidi Bou Saïd of these famous doorways. I just love them.

This is a photo of the back of Sabih's head, and yes that is a cop outside the car window. This is proof of a 'shake down'! Something like 50% of the cabs in Tunis are not strictly legal. They are necessary and always busy, but the cost of running a 'legal' cab is so prohibitive that it's cheaper to pay the cop a bribe than to pay for all the licenses you need to operate. So cops pull over cabs randomly and when you are asked for your NINE pieces of proof, you hand over your license with a few bills instead and the cop sends you on your way. Sabih, however, had all NINE of his necessary proofs and the cop had to let him on his way anyway, but he wasn't too happy. Oh, and seatbelts are required to be worn by everyone in the vehicle, Sabih made us wear ours, it's not worth the ticket.

The next day Sabih drove us two hours south to El Jem and the colosseum there. We took tons of photos. Rich, you would have been in heaven, this is a fabulous place for black and white photography. I wish I had time and storage to upload all the fabulous photos we took. This one is not as big as the one in Rome, but it is in better shape. You can actually go underground and wander around.

Colosseum.

Me in one of the underground tunnels.

S kicking sand down on me in the tunnel ...accidentally of course.

I love this photo.

In El Jem there is a museum that you can get into with the same ticket you bought at the Colosseum. It houses one of the best collections of mosaics I've ever seen. Many of them are complete and were moved here pebble by pebble from a nearby roman village. Unlike museums in the state where they would be roped off, these are fully accessible and not only can you walk on them, in some rooms you have to walk on them because they go wall to wall (as well as being on all of the walls too.)

We headed back north to Sousse. This is a photo of the fishing harbor. Lots of piles of nets and stuff, the good news is that you can't smell the lovely odor that accompanied the taking of this picture. I may never eat fish again. And mercifully it was cold outside cause if it had been warmer...

This is the inside of the Ribat which is located inside the huge walls of the Sousse medina. The ribat was built as a fort. It housed soldiers who divided their time between pouring boiling oil down on intruders from the ramparts and studying the Quran on quiet days. It was pretty cool, we took some great photos from the top, of the surrounding medina and the town of Sousse and it's harbor.

Yeah, this is a picture of sheep. (A bad picture of sheep because it was taken from a moving car and the sheep turned their butts to us.) Now why would this be an important picture to include? Especially after uploading 25 others? Well there's a funny (funny odd not funny ha-ha) story to be told here. The sheep would be used in a muslim holy day celebration later that week. Sabih couldn't explain it very well except to say that early in the week every family bought a sheep. There were various activities accompanying this purchase and then the sheep is slaughtered. These sheep and shepherds were everywhere, vacant lots, parks, olive groves, highway off ramps/on ramps and even on the highway medians. (Grazing in Tunis is poor. Too much deforestation leading to poor soil, leading to tremendous erosion - huge cautionary tale here about poor land management) Anyway, we saw sheep everywhere we went. On the day we went to El Jem and Sousse, much of the driving took us through small rural villages and in many of these places the slaughter had begun. You'd drive past these shops where out front there would be hanging, on one side the fresh and bloody hides, on the other side the freshly butchered carcasses and tied up underneath the next victims. Now you would think that these sheep would be agitated knowing they were next, but no, either sheep are really that stupid or they had moved on from denial, anger etc. and had safely arrived to acceptance. It was pathetic and funny at the same time. In other news, we did finally receive our luggage. It arrived the day before we left. This after several phone calls, assuring us, that yes, it's here, but weasil boy behind the counter did not have time to actually check that it was there, but he was sure it had come in on this last plane. We arrive at the airport 45 minutes later only to find no luggage. Then weasil boy behind the counter would say, 'Oh, I'm sure it's on the next flight, if you want to wait, it will be here in two hours'. I swear, S, my mild mannered and eternally calm husband, was seconds away from killing someone. My money was on weasil boy because he sure as heck was irritating. Bear in mind that each round trip to the airport cost us about $70. We finally, on Sunday night, bought some bare essentials. Though the laundry in the sink was continued. It sounds worse than it was, after all, we got there on Saturday and our luggage finally arrived on Monday morning. Sabih took S to pick it up, we quickly showered and changed into gloriously fresh clothes for our trip to El Jem. Sabih very charmingly commented on how much better we looked; what a sweet heart.