Tunisia

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We rolled off the ferry in another continent. The ride from the northern-most part of Africa to the most southern stretched out ahead of us, a blank canvas of potential.

Jaap and Fre were stamped through the border in about 2 minutes each. It took me 3 hours. For some reason as a New Zealander I needed a visa. A mysterious and protracted immigration process culminated in me being presented with a full page visa, complete with a photo of me in green. The Indelible Hulk.

Morsi had invited us to his family home in Sousse, so we headed south, and were treated to half a dozen incredible dishes cooked by his mum. Their hospitality blew us away. Morsi, you're a good dude.

We went for a beer after dinner, and checked out a crazy hotel that was build just before the Tunisian uprising, and is now virtually empty. In fact the whole area in Sousse had obviously been very popular in the past, but now it was a bit of a tourist ghost-town.

The next day we headed south, threading our way through grubby but interesting towns before finding a hotel in Mahres. Fre was dead-set on a swim, so we wandered down to a litter-strewn beach where he wandered half a mile out to get deep enough to get wet. We had to admire his commitment... from the shoreline.

As 80s kids, Jaap and I were keen for a visit to the Star Wars set for Tatooine, presumably named after Tataouine in Tunisia where it was filmed. So we took a small detour and experienced some great riding before missing the set completely and ending up on the island of Djerba. Oh well, Trace sent us some photos by email.

A massive seafood meal followed by a camp on the beach rounded out our last evening Tunisia.

We had been asking about the situation in Libya, and most Tunisians didn't think it would be very safe. As a result I felt more pensive about entering Libya the closer we got to the border. But we had an excellent fixer who was going to meet us at the border and sort us out with contacts in Tripoli, so I felt comfortable enough to give it a shot, and get more information from the locals once inside Libya. It feels good to be slightly anxious, because you know if everything is OK there'll be a certain thrill.

Here's our Tunisia video: https://vimeo.com/76064589

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