Daniele Somenzi's Tunisia

Tunisia Giovanni, who has a travel agency, asks me if I'm willing in June to go to Jerba in Tunisia for a week to give support to the girl who was escorting the group; I accept, so from Rome Fiumicino I leave with a part of the mega group of about eighty people who have won this trip from the tour operator, Going.

The plane is a Tunis Air Boeing 727. On board there's also Orso Maria Guerrini, an Italian actor who is going to the Arab country with his crew to shoot some scenes of one of his films; he even asks me if I'm willing to be an extra a few days later, I say yes, but then they never get back in touch.

We arrive at Jerba airport, and here we come down from the plane by the steps, and right there on the runway all the passengers' suitcases are lined up. There's no customs clearance; we pass without any check, a bus takes us to one of the resort hotels, ours is called Telemaque Club Resort.

They assign me a room. In the evening there's the entertainment; the beach isn't the best, of course here we're not in the Caribbean or better still the Maldives, but for sunbathing it's fine; I prefer to stay by the pool.

In the evening we're all in a big hall eating, the food is very good, then in the disco until late.

When the next day I'm asked whether I prefer to stay there at the hotel for support or go on the oases tour, I clearly opt for the tour; I'm an eagle that flies free in the sky, and staying in the village for a week isn't my thing.

So the next day, with 2 full buses, we set off for boarding the ferry; yes, because Jerba is an island. At the little harbour, the Tunisians fish with their boats; something that immediately catches my eye, grinding out km with the coaches and passing through the little villages, is the absolute absence of women or anyway of female Homo sapiens; they're all shut up at home, I'm told.

We arrive at the edges of the sand dunes of the Sahara desert, and many of ours do the circuit on camels, and I, amused, film the scenes with my camera; unfortunately though something unpleasant happens to me, I hear among the gears of my camera, putting my ear to it, some nasty crick-cricks. A bit of sand had jammed the gears and broken it. Confound it, I say, and right now? Couldn't it break at the end of the holiday? This sand is so fine it looks like dust.

At lunch we all eat under the Bedouin tents cross-legged, all very Tunisian, too bad that the owner of these tents isn't a Bedouin but an Italian.

The desert roses are on all the stalls of the little market we visit, where I buy a miniature set of cups with a coffee moka, and also a leather hat. That night we sleep in a nice hotel at the edges of the desert. We're surrounded by date palms.

The next day we visit a cave dwelling, houses dug in various deep holes in the ground currently inhabited by elderly Tunisians, a typical thing of the place. One of the drivers lifts a stone and under it a beautiful scorpion puts on a display; too bad the drivers don't like him, so in a second he became flat as a sheet of paper. Last stop at a market, I don't even get off the bus, too much confusion.

In the evening we return to Jerba and I spend the remaining days at the hotel, since outside there's the desert and we're isolated.

At the airport, again we board the plane without any check; if I'd had a hand grenade in my pocket, no problem bringing it on board, crazy stuff.

bye