Tunisia by www.born2travel.it

The story

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29. 12. 2003 Hammamet (TUNISIA)

At last we land in Tunisia... but to get there... Direct flight Rome - Monastir but after an hour and 40 minutes we unexpectedly land on the island of Djerba! Go figure! After a while we set off again for our destination.

A rickety bus takes us to our resort and covers the 70 km separating the airport from the Yasmine Beach Resort in Hammamet in just 90 minutes. It's the dead of night and dead tired we go to rest.

30. 12. 2003 Hammamet (TUNISIA)

Early in the morning a taxi takes us into town. 8 km from our resort. Here everything is based, as the traders themselves say, on haggling... We take a stroll through the "Medina", very similar to the bazaars of Istanbul... what chaos, everyone was pulling you this way and that to show you their stalls and at times they were so annoying... They sold everything and, as the guide had explained to us, you never know the real price of an object... just think, I wanted to buy a metal bracelet with my name engraved in Arabic and they wanted 36 dinars (about 30 Euro); after various rounds of haggling we got down to 6 dinars! I continue my stroll in the Medina and another bracelet seller stops me; to get rid of him quickly I show him the one I'd just bought and he asks me how much I'd paid; I say: 4 dinars, and he raises me: "I'll do it for you for three dinars".

We'll never know the value of these objects! But this is Tunisia! A country that is 96% Muslim, where the state language is Arabic and where they interrupt the national programmes every four hours for a brief "liturgical" interval... In the evening we meet three people from Foggia in the street and after various adventures we manage to go all together to an area full of discos, but very disappointing. We choose the biggest: "Manhattan" and spend the evening dancing to mediocre Tunisian disco music... 31. 12. 2003 Hammamet (TUNISIA) A little while ago we took a stroll in this suburb of Hammamet, how ugly! There are only hotels and resorts. I feel like I'm walking on the board of that board game called "Hotel"! All these imposing four- or five-star hotels flaunting a sometimes excessive luxury...

Moreover, while walking, I noticed and discovered various things: that there are lots of Algerian tourists, all with their cars with plates similar to French ones but with the international code DZ; that to enter the casinos you have to be a foreigner and prove it with your passport, indeed entry is forbidden to Tunisians and you play only with Euros or dollars. In the evening we celebrated the end of this 2003 with a big dinner in the hotel. What a disappointment! Hours and hours of waiting to eat little and of poor quality. The only two characteristic things were the belly dancers and the little piglets left loose among the tables with lots of Tunisians chasing them. 01. 01. 2004 Nabeul (TUNISIA) Today I really saw the Tunisia I was looking for...

the real one, the one far from the splendours of the big European five-star resorts, the one of the dromedaries, of the cans at the roadside full of petrol bought in nearby Libya (we travelled the road leading to Tripoli, 300 km, and to Cairo 3000). Petrol here costs 50 euro cents, in Libya half that, which is why so many improvise as petrol sellers... I saw the Tunisia of mud and straw shacks, of dirt roads, of men sitting around a filthy little table enjoying their beloved "narghile", of "object" women in burkas, of ceramics markets... This is the Tunisia I was looking for... The Tunisia whose third language is Italian, whose women, apparently submissive, have more lovers than men, those who, as our guide said, love four animals: the donkey, the jaguar, the lion and the mink...

Indeed they look for one who is like a lion in bed, who gives them a mink, has a Jaguar in the garage and pays all the bills like a donkey... Nabeul struck us for its ceramics. Everywhere they sold plates, pottery and everything that can be made from clay. This little escape was very interesting!

02. 01. 2004 Douz (TUNISIA)

In the morning we visited El Jem and the third most important Colosseum in the world after Rome and ancient Capua (today Santa Maria Capua Vetere). Though a bit sleepy (it was six in the morning) we form a little group of revellers with two ladies from Rome (Daniela and Liliana), two Roman girls (Federica and Alessia) and a couple of forty-somethings from Catanzaro (indeed the woman, a marathon runner, had come fourth among the Italians at the New York marathon). The tour continues towards Matmata where we visit the troglodyte villages, a people who lived hidden in holes dug in the rocks to defend themselves from the desert pirates and who rejected progress and everything that came with it. I felt a bit like Licia Colò when I tasted their bread soaked in olive oil... Lunch based on Couscous and we immediately set off for Douz to admire the sunset in the Sahara desert...

My dromedary walked, strolled slowly, climbing among the many dunes of the desert... the sun went down beyond the horizon making room for the queen of darkness... the infinity of grains of sand drove me crazy... and he... always calm continued his journey.