Morocco and Tunisia (2/2)
This post is part 2 of the "ma-tn-2024" series:
I spent nearly 3 weeks exploring Morocco and Tunisia. This was supposed to be a trip to Algeria (instead of Morocco), but that fell apart when the tour group lacked the minimum number of participants. This makes the second time that I failed to get to Algeria. That said, it was a good trip overall, and things went fairly smoothly. What follows is the time spent in Tunisia, see the first part for Marocco.
Day 10
i slept until around 2am, and then was wide awake stressing about getting to my 7:50am flight. i checked out at 3:45, and took the 4am shuttle to the airport.
Yesterday, Royal Air Maroc sent me an email recommending that I get to the airport 4 hours early to avoid problems. I arrived 3.5 early and the ticket counters hadn't even opened yet, and there were fewer than 10 passengers. Clearly, I was a fool, and could have arrived an hour later. I got my boarding pass from the machine, but security didn't open until 5:10. Apparently, i'm on the first flight of the morning, and the terminal was dead. I did see several cats wandering around the gate area. There was 1 food stand open, so I got a surprisingly decent quiche for breakfast. The gate assignment was changed, with no announcement less than an hour before boarding. I only noticed because the monitor at the original gate no longer listed my flight. I got demoted to a bus gate one floor down. The plane is quite old, no IFE or power outlets. Oddly, more than half the passengers are Chinese.
We landed on time, but when I entered the immigration hall, there were 20 huge lines of people. It took about a half hour to clear immigration. No issues using an ATM. Getting the rental car took nearly an hour. There was a line, and just one old lady behind the counter. She was super slow, and needed to write down so much stuff for each person. Once she finished my paperwork, I had to wait to be escorted out of the terminal to the car. I got a diesel Hyundai Santa Fe.
Traffic driving through Tunis was awful. However once I got out of the city the rest of the drive was fine, with good 2 lane roads. Purely by accident I passed the remains of the (Roman) Zaghouan aqueduct, which is apparently 132km long.
I stopped for gas on the outskirts of Kairouen (which is apparently a corruption of the word caravan), and got to the hotel just after 3pm. The hotel is huge, and quite nice (especially for $70). They gave me a welcome drink while checking in. I overheard a Chinese tourist throwing a tantrum and demanding a refund because their room didn't have a king bed.
After dropping off my stuff, I headed back out. Across the road from the hotel was the tourist info center. The city is a UNESCO site, as its the first Islamic city in North Africa (excluding egypt) dating back to 640AD. I needed to purchase a ticket to enter the grand mosque (670AD), and chatted a bit with the guy working there. He was very excited to practice his English. Then I walked about 15 minutes to the mosque. I have to wait until tomorrow morning to get inside (it closed at 2pm), but I was still able to walk the perimeter and peer into the prayer hall (restricted to muslims). There were lots of cats everywhere too.
I headed back to the hotel, with a brief stop to purchase a huge jug of water. at this point I was exhausted and decided to have dinner at the hotel. They actually had a pretty decent buffet. it was nice not to have to wander the streets searching for a restaurant, or drive somewhere after dark.
Day 11
I slept until the call to prayer at 5:30am, and got up for the day just after 6. the breakfast buffet was decent. i checked out at 7:30am and drove a few minutes to the grand mosque. Lots of kids walking to school, but otherwise fairly dead. I was the first/only person inside the mosque, which was nice for photos. I was finished at 8:30, and started the drive east towards Monastir.
The sky was overcast for a large part of the day. The drive went fine, and I got to Monastir at 9:30am. Street parking was easy, and I seemed to be the first/only visitor at the Ribat (which is basically a military garrison). It sits right on the Mediterranean coast. Lots of twisty passages and rooms across 3 levels to explore, plus a huge guard tower. It was fun. Just as I was finishing at 10:15, a family arrived.
Next, I drove south to the small city of El Jem. Smack in the center is the ~250AD Roman amphitheater, the 2nd largest after the Coliseum in Rome. It is huge, holding about 30k spectators. Nearly the entire structure was accessible, including the underground passageways where they held animals before shows. There were a bunch of other tourists, but not a huge number. The stones used to build the structure were massive, nearly the size of a kitchen fridge. Plus so many arches. I enjoyed exploring it a lot.
Afterwards, i started the drive south towards the town of Matmata at noon. Much of the drive was on a freeway, with a toll booth. Traffic was fairly light, and the sky cleared as I started to enter the desert. Despite spending 2 hours on the freeway, there was just 1 rest area (with food & fuel), and it was just after I entered.
After I exited the freeway (toll was about $1.75), I was on 2 lane roads weaving across the desert. Not many towns, and just 1 gas station (which didn't take cards). I still have slightly more than a half tank of fuel, so its not urgent. I will definitely need to fill up tomorrow, even if I have to pay cash.
The town of Matmata is known for two things. First, people (mostly Berbers) dig caves into hillsides for their homes going back hundreds of years. Second, there's the Sidi Idriss Hotel, which was the setting of the Star Wars Lars Homestead (Luke's aunt & uncle in the first film). I'm staying at that hotel tonight. My room is one of the caves, the movie set is now the hotel bar. Its weird, quirky and odd.
Day 12
i passed out at 9pm last night. not sure why i was so tired. i slept until 3am, then was tossing a lot until I gave up just after the 5:30 call to prayer. this janky cave hotel only has cave communal bathrooms, but no towels. so i skipped a shower. Breakfast was basic (boiled eggs, bread, jam, butter), but fine.
I left just before 8am. The first goal of the day was to find fuel, preferably at a gas station that accepted cards. About an hour later, I entered the small city of Medenine. I pulled into a Shell station first, and initially they claimed they took Visa cards. But they insisted on some weird prepayment. When they attempted to use the card reader it seemed like either it was broken, or they didn't know how to work it. I tried 3 other gas stations after that, and none took cards. I gave up, and just paid cash, which ended up costing about $25.
Also while driving, I saw a few signs for the road that (eventually) leads to Tripoli, Libya. Apparently its only 300km east.
After that ordeal, I headed south towards the town of Tataoine. There were 7 different Berber ruins in a rough loop around the outskirts of town. I managed to visit all 7 over the course of the day. Some were great, others disappointing. Also, the weather kinda sucked all day. It was very cloudy early in the morning, and then there was intermittent light rain starting around noon. The weather was fairly frustrating, as the lack of sun made for really poor light.
The first stop was Ksar Hedada, which was used as a filming location for one of the 2nd trilogy of Star Wars films. Unfortunately the entire thing is part of a schlocky hotel now, and they charged about 75 cents just to wander around the crumbling ruins. If it were free it would have been fine, but it wasn't worth paying, when later ruins were far better.
Second was Ksar Gattoufa, which was amazing. It waz huge, in fairly good condition, and no one else was there. After that was Ksar Ezzhara. This one was in fairly bad condition, although, at least I had it to myself. Forth was Ksar Oulud Soltane. This one was quite nice, although there were a bunch of guys setup trying to sell random art to tourists. There were a few other tourists there at the time.
By 1pm, I had visited everything east of Tataoine, and started working my way northwest. First was Douiret, and it was spectacular, and easily the best of the day. An entire village plus small white mosque, sat at the top of a mountain. Other than a few tourists who left shortly after I arrived, there was just a caretaker napping. I was able to explore & wander everywhere. After that, I went to Cheneni, which was fairly disappointing. It was also similarly setup with the village & mosque on a mountain top. However it had obnoxious cafes, gift shops, and a slimy guide who would not leave me alone, then demanded 20 euros for pointing out the obvious. I refused to pay him, he gave me sad eyes and stories about his hungry children. I gave him some pocket change which was close to $5 and he acted offended. I left, and was super annoyed that they ruined what could have been another great site. The final stop was Guermassa. This was also a village & mosque on the mountain top, but thankfully it was devoid of people. This one was a bit of a challenge to access. It looked like it once had a road to the top, but storms destroyed it. As a result, I had to climb a very steep, rocky hillside to get up there. The views were great, and it was a work out. After all this, it was after 4pm.
I drove 20 minutes back towards Tataoine, and checked into my hotel. Thankfully, no caves, and a real hotel room.
Day 13
i slept ok, but had lots of weird/bad dreams. i woke up just before 7am. Breakfast was possibly the worst of the trip. It was basically a bunch of weird, random condiments, pound cake, and omelettes. The omelette was ok. I departed before 10am. The weather was again, gloomy, and it looked like it might rain several times in the morning.
I swung into Tatouine to fill up on gas, then drove for 30 minutes to another Berber ruin named Kasr Farech. There was a car full of tourists there when I arrived. Then I noticed that the entrance had a locked gate. I called out hoping a caretaker was around, but nothing.
Disappointed, I left, and drove an hour west to Limes Tripolitanus. This was the ruins of the Roman fortification wall that they built to defend the perimeter of their empire. There wasn't much left now besides a large truck sized chunk of exposed brick wall, and a long hill stretching off to the horizon, that used to be the rest of the wall. It was kinda interesting, as its now basically in the middle of nowhere, and very much desert. While I was there, I saw a group of people far off in the distance, and they were all wearing brown hooded cloaks. I couldn't figure what they were doing, other than wandering around the desert. Obviously, I've got Star Wars on the brain, but they kinda reminded me of the sand people.
After that, I took a very isolated, lonely, paved road west for over 2 hours. As I drove, the sky started to clear, but the wind kicked up too. And sand dunes started to accumulate, including across the road. Eventually I reached a T intersection, where about a dozen camels were wandering about, being goofballs. I started driving north. Way more san dunes, and there were a lot of spots where they crossed the road where it was many inches deep.
I reached the desert oasis 'town' of Ksar Ghilane just after 3pm. The town seems to mostly exist to cater to tourists who want to go out into the dunes (on quads, camels or jeeps). The actual oasis looks nice enough, with plenty of palms and grass. Just beyond the oasis/town is the start of the full huge dune desert, which stretches over 50 miles west towards the Algerian border. I was hoping to hike out about 3km into the dunes to the ruins of a Roman fort. But the wind was insane, and my eyes were sore from blowing sand from just a short walk outside. So I knew it would have been a bad idea to spend a few hours out on the dunes. Instead, I drove about 1 km east of town to a monument to Col. Le Clerc who led French forces (coming from Chad!) against the Germans in the desert nearby in 1943.
I returned to the hotel before sunset. The insane wind seemed to be dying down, so I sat outside for a bit. Then at 18:20, as if someone pulled the plug the cell signal completely went away. It was very weird. Hopefully it resolves itself by morning, or at least once I drive to a new town. thankfully there is working wifi here.
Dinner was pretty good. There was soup which had couscous onions, tomatoes, and some unknown spices, with hot & toasty flat bread. Then brik, which is basically a fried egg inside a wonton wrapper. The main course was quarter chicken, onions, potatoes and green peppers in a spicy turmeric broth, made in a sealed clat pot.
Day 14
I slept fairly well until 4am when I woke to use the toilet, and then couldn't get warm again. No towels provided, so I skipped a shower (plus, i'm not sure there was hot water). I packed up, and sat in the car to use the wifi for a bit. Thankfully the cell signal started working again at 7:30am. I had breakfast and then departed at 8am.
Much of the drive was through massive, sprawling date farms. When I wasn't surrounded by date palms, I was driving across huge dry lakes. At one point, I was driving across the lake for nearly an hour. Oddly, there was a police checkpoint in the middle of the lake, and they made me stop. But as soon as they realized that I didn't speak much French, they let me go. I stopped for gas, and amazingly, they accepted my card.
Just before 1pm, I passed through the city of Tozeur, and stopped in a Carrefour to buy some snacks, as I was quite hungry. I ended up getting dates and chips for about $2.
Right around 2pm, I reached the Star Wars 'Lars Family Homestead' site. This is the above ground dome structure that represented the external home in the first film. Getting there required driving about 2km across the dry lake, but it was a well worn road, and quite firm. It looked amazing. Just like in the film, with the infinite, flat expanse of the lake stretching to the horizon.
Next was a 45 minute drive north to the filming location for Mos Espa. The road was paved nearly the entire way, although there were dunes & camels on the road at times. From a distance, it looked quite nice, with lots of structures still standing. But as I neared, it was a mess. Lots of people setup tables in front of the buildings, selling junky souvenirs. Plus there were guys everywhere trying to sell camel rides, quad rides & motorbike rides. The entire place looked like a vast tourist trap. It was very difficult to explore the site without something or someone marring the view. The final insult came when they started calling to me in Chinese with Ni-hou.
Afterwards, I had an hour drive northwest to the guesthouse for tonight, in the oasis town of Chbika. The drive was fine, mostly across open desert, and through an oasis, with a mountain range running east-west on the horizon. The town is just 10 miles east of the Algerian border, although the nearest border post is 30 miles north.
Day 15
It was a rough night. The mattress was nothing but springs, and should have been replaced long long ago. Then a rooster, which sounded like it was literally outside the window, started making noise at 1am. Every few minutes, all damn night long. I gave up attempting to sleep at 5am. I departed just before 7am, as the sun was rising.
I had a 30 minute drive northwest to the town of Mides. The town itself is boring, but just beyond is the ruins of the ancient town, a dramatic slot canyon, and a huge oasis. Since I arrived so early, I had it all to myself, before any other tourists or hawkers arrived. The canyon was barely 1km long, and had a tiny creek running through it. The sun rise lit it up perfectly, and it was pretty. Just as I was finishing, and returning to the car, a rando tried to sell me coffee.
The next 5.5 hours were spent driving much of the way back north. It was desert for about 2 hours, then some transition, and over an hour in green rolling hills. I stopped for gas at 11am. There were also a bunch of police checkpoints. Most waived me through. But at noon, I was stopped by a jerk who seemed determined to punish me for not understanding his French. He basically demanded everything (passport, driver's license, and car paperwork), then took all of it and disappeared into his shack for nearly 15 minutes. I was starting to suspect it was a shakedown for a bribe when he finally returned and literally threw everything back at me, and let me go.
The weather started off perfect, and turned crappy. The sky filled with dark clouds, and occasional light rain by early afternoon. Just after 1pm, I reached my destination, the Roman city of Dougga. At this point there was a cold wind blowing, and the sky was angry. All the reviews that I read commented about how huge this city was. They were not exaggerating. It was built on a hillside, and is massive. Additionally, its in far better condition than Volubilis (that I visited in Morocco). Nearly all the walls were still standing, and some structures still had the roofs and full arches. Plus the baths were intact, and lots of mosaics, several temples, the forum, a 3500 seat theater, the paving stone streets, and lots of columns and latin script carvings. The big challenge was trying to see everything, as I'd spot something interesting, then see more things, and struggle to return to where I left off. I think I managed to cover around 75% after 2 hours, when the rain started. While I didn't get fully soaked, I did get quite wet making the long walk back to the car. I likely could have spent another hour if the weather wasn't so awful.
I drove about 15 minutes away to my hotel for the night. its eerily dead. i might be the only guest.
Day 16
I slept much much better, all the way until the 5:30am call to prayer, and then I was up for the day. Breakfast was sad, with stale bread, 1 boiled egg, and some packaged junk. I departed at 8am. It rained overnight, and was still windy & cloudy this morning.
I drove an hour west to Roman city ruins of Bulla Reggia. The road was a broken wet mess, and it rained a bit too. However, the sky started to clear a bit once I arrived at 9am. This was a much smaller city than yesterday, and overall, no where near as well preserved or impressive. It was overgrown with plants, and most of the structures had little left beyond short walls. However, it did have a number of amazing mosaics. Some structures had a basement level, with a courtyard to let light in from above. Down there the mosaics were well preserved. Vibrant colors and details, down to the iris of people's eyes. There was also a smaller theater, but it was in poor condition compared to yesterday. I finished after 90 minutes, and started the drive back to Tunis.
Much of the route was a freeway, with a toll ticket. Overall, it was an easy drive. Except two ridiculous police checkpoints in the middle of the freeway, less than a kilometer apart. I got flagged at both. Yet as soon as they realized that I spoke no French, they shook my hand and let me go. So dumb and pointless. I got into Tunis at 1pm, then fought heavy traffic attempting to reach a gas station to fill up. Finally got to the airport just before 2pm.
No issues returning the car, other than they were very slow, again. After 30 minutes, I was done, and went to get a taxi to the hotel. Of course they swarmed me. I showed them where I wanted to go on google maps, and asked how much. After grumbling about a meter, they quoted me 30 Dinar, which was less than the hotel wanted to send me a driver (50), so I agreed. The drive took 20 minutes. Then the guy demanded the meter price which was 57. I laughed, handed him 30, and got out. He started yelling, but drove away after a few seconds.
The hotel seems really nice. I foolishly assumed that there would be a lot of options for dinner within a reasonable walking distance. But somehow, there aren't that many. I thought that I found a good place, but when I walked 15 minutes across the medina to get there it wasn't open. My next option was another 10 minutes walk further away. Thankfully it (Restaurant Neptune) was open, and reasonably busy. Its sorta got a diner vibe, with cheesy paper placemats with the name of the restaurant and a cartoon chef's face. The server looks like he's worked here since the place opened in 1968. I ordered brik with tuna, and Kamounia with veal. But a few minutes later the guy came back to tell me that they didn't have the Kamounia, so I ended up getting couscous with chicken. Overall, the food was fine, especially for around $6.
Day 17
I slept really well until around 7. The breakfast was amazing. So much food, and most of it was really good. A bread basket with croissants & flat bread. Butter, jam, halva, labneh. Fruit plate with dates, bananas, apples & oranges. Cheese plate with olives. Biscotti with tea/coffee. Fresh strawberry smoothie. Crepes. Shakshuka. More fruit.
I departed for Carthage at 9am. There's supposed to be a TGM train that runs there every 20 minutes. When I got to the station, they were forcing everyone onto a bus, because the train wasn't running. The bus already had no open seats when I boarded, and by the time it left, it was packed. With each stop, more people packed on. After nearly an hour, it arrived roughly where i wanted to get off, yet the bus was still quite full.
The ancient Carthage ruins are very spread out around thr modern city, which required a lot of walking. They were all incredibly disappointing. There's not much to see beyond crumbling walls and almost no signs. I did accidentally stumble upon a bunch of slabs of mosaics leaning against a wall amongst weeds. No clue why they were there, but that was really the only good stuff.
After that, I walked a bit further to the American North Africa WW2 cemetery. Its the only cemetery for those who died fighting in Morocco, Algeria & Tunisia, and has nearly 6000 buried. I was the only visitor, other than the ground crew who were trimming the lawn. While there, I noticed the train running in the distance. I walked to the nearest station, and sure enough it was running. I took it 2 stops north to Sidi Bou Said. The town sits on a huge hill overlooking the sea. It wasn't too crowded, so I wandered for a bit. I got falafel with a date shake for lunch.
I took the train towards Tunis. I got a seat, and all seemed good until everyone got off 6 stops before the end. Burned again by the train. I walked to the nearest major road, and hailed a taxi. It took 30 minutes of driving in bad traffic, and cost about $5.
Dinner was a pain to figure out again, with nothing good less than 10 minutes walk away. I contacted a place that looked good on whatsapp, and thankfully they replied quickly to confirm that they were not open. I found another place, and thankfully it was open when I arrived at 19:30. Dar Belhadj is fancy. They seemed annoyed that I didn't have a reservation, but it was never more than half full while I was there. They had live music from a guy in a fes, playing a qanun (kinda looks like a baby harp). Food prices were very expensive by Tunisian standards, but kinda average by American. I ended up getting an appetizer plate which had 8 different things. S ome of them were deep fried hot pocket looking things with different fillings. There was also what looked like brisket with pickled vegetables. A bunch of olives. It was decent. My main was smoked lamb with rice & dried fruit. It was pretty good. My bill came to about $33.
Day 18
I slept ok, but was a bit warm. I was up for the day at 7am. Breakfast was similar to yesterday.
I walked over to a busy street, and flagged a taxi to drive me to the Bardo Museum. Yet somehow, the taxi driver had never heard of the most famous museum in Tunisia, and I had to give him driving directions. I got there in about 15 minutes, and it cost less than $3.
The museum was great. Thankfully, not too crowded either. They had a special temporary exhibit of photos from the late 19th century, showing what all the ancient sites looked like before modern restoration efforts occurred. Since I'd visited many of them, it was fascinating. Oddly, the grand mosque of Kairouan looked nearly the same after 125 years, but everything else was quite different. The huge amphitheater in El Jem was in quite poor condition back then, with weeds growing all over the place.
The permanent exhibits were quite nice too. Most people come to see the massive mosaics exhibits. For the most part, what I saw today far exceeded all the mosaics that I saw out 'in the wild'. They were generally in much better condition, but also much larger. I ended up spending nearly 3 hours in the museum.
Afterwards, I was getting hungry. I walked about 15 minutes to a pizza place. It was pretty good. I returned to the hotel after that and relaxed.
Day 19
I was up at 2AM for my ride to the airport to catch the 5:20am flight to Paris. Thankfully, all of that went smoothly, and my flight to SFO was also drama free.
Overall, it was a good trip, to a corner of the world that I'd never visited before. I wouldn't rule out returning to either country, but its hardly high on my list.
A GPX map track from the trip is:
All trip pictures are posted HERE
This post is part 2 of the "ma-tn-2024" series: