A week in Tunisia

We had an incredible time in Tunisia the first full week of April for spring break from school. We packed a LOT into that week too...including two days of travel to the Southern areas on the Libyan and Algerian borders. The first day we took a train to Tunis, about an hour away, and negotiated with a taxi driver to show us everything in Tunis, Carthage, and Sidi Bou Said. (a seaside, cobble-stones town with all blue doors and white houses) Nice guy, and a good way to see everything without the hassles of driving or tour buses. The ruins in Carthage rivaled the forum in Rome. I had to relearn about the Punic Wars. (The "Punics" were the Phoenicians, from Lebanon) The old residential areas, temples and baths were from 800 BC, and you still walk on the mosaic floors! The Roman baths there were second only to those in Rome, although more was intact here. We spent too much time walking around the medina (less sale4s pressure than Morocco here) and ended up taking the 1940's era train home around 7pm, when it was SO full that we had to stand all the way. The next day we walked the beach to Hammamet, and saw a big old fort and THEIR medina, and ate their national dish,couscous, for lunch. Later that week, we joined a tour bus to go down to the southern parts of the state. (It's about the size of Indiana) The first stop was El jem, the 3rd largest Roman amphitheater. The highlight for me was going for an hour long camel ride into the Sahara in Douz. My definition of "desert" has totally changed: not all cacti, but lots of other vegetation. There were lakes, mountains, lots of oasises, and marshy-like areas of sand in pink, all shades of tan, rust, and even black. The sand had different feels too...in the southern Sahara, it was like tan baby talcum powder. It sparkles in the sun because many little rocks are actually Mica crystals. The rest is "dust-like" and gets in everything...your watch, camera, hair, ears! (I could go on and on!) Very quiet though, and windy, with huge temperature variations. We rode LandRovers up and down the huge dunes, which was like a roller coaster! We ate lunch in one of the troglodyte underground homes. No wonder Steven Spielburg came here to film Star Wars! It's almost another-worldly.
Then we drove to Keballi, where they filmed young Luke Skywalker's home. If it were in the states, they'd have a gift shop nearby. It was refreshing that they didn't, but they did have a little porta-potty and sold tickets for the toilet for 1 Dinar that said "Star Wars Toilet". The date wasn't on it, so I'm planning on going back someday! We spent one night in the desert (at a hotel though...I couldn't wait to get in the shower and watch the sand piles form at my feet!) The next day we went to Chebika, on the Algerian border, and saw the ruins of an ancient Berber village, another oasis, desert mountains, and ate yet more couscous. It was a busy two days, but we had one more day to spend up north,(we went to the Bardo Museum in Tunis) so we went to look at the beautiful mosaics. It wasn't warm enough for a beach day anyway, but I did get an hour in the sun before the rain started. An early (3:15 AM!!) wake-up call got us to the Tunis-Carthage Airport and home in a few hours. It was a wonderful trip, the people were not pushy, very kind and helpful. Some of the women wore veils, some didn't. There were churches, synagogues,and mosques. It was very tolerant of differences and you could get a glass of wine or beer in the hotels and restaurants.