We arrived in Tunis, capital of Tunisia, late on Tuesday night because of dreadful weather at Heathrow. Though only a few hours behind schedule it gave us no time to orientate ourselves. Instead we just took a taxi from Tunis Carthage airport to the Hotel Ariha , unpacked a few things and turned in for the night. Our French isn’t up to much so far and we ended up speaking Spanish to the taxi driver and broken English at the hotel!! On Wednesday morning we got our first taste of croissants for breakfast with some cheese and turkey salami. There was [View Full Entry]

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Our 10th and final day in Tunisia. What a great place and one which is full of contrasts. Time stopped here in the 19th century yet internet and mobile phones are everywhere. The people are very friendly and often there is a bit of English here and there. The country has a long Islamic heritage yet all is very relaxed. It is possible to even find a little alcohol. On arrival in Tunis it seemed we were in Paris with cafe lined Habib Bourguiba Av and carefully pruned trees. We enjoyed our time with visits to the Roman city of Catharge, [View Full Entry]

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Having failed to receive our Iranian visas and recognizing that it was winter in most of the Middle East, we did some serious re-thinking of where to go from Bahrain. Originally, we had planned to travel overland from Pakistan to Iran, Turkey and from there to Syria, Lebannon, Jordan, Egypt and across North Africa to Morocco. We also confirmed that overland travel in North Africa was going to be unlikely across the Egypt/Libya and Libya/Tunisia borders and impossible across the Tunisia/Algeria and Algeria/Morocco borders. Libya and Algeria also require that we book tours in advance in order [View Full Entry]

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We went to Tunis with a very big aircraft that wasn’t even half full! So the flight felt like forever. After a very long wait a wheelchair showed up for an old lady. We finally left the aircraft and took a scenic bus ride to the hotel. I had a Cape Town feeling driving there... At the hotel we soon learned that the people there aren’t the friendliest and if you cannot speak or understand French/Arabic it’s your problem. After a shower and sending my uniform to the dry cleaners 5 of us jumped into a taxi to Sidi Bousaid. Sisi [View Full Entry]

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I woke up around 830am and I took a shower. Celine and I went all over the medina. When we started out we were a little hungry and Celine introduced me to fruit cocktails. It is quite similar to a smoothie, the one that we had was a made from banana and I think they put dates and crushed cashew and almond as well and they top it up with a few banana slices and honey. It tasted fantastic and it cost less than a dinar. I think I can just live on them. By the time we had that it [View Full Entry]

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Woke up around 9am; I had not done any of my packing and my room was in an utter mess. I also had to go to the bank because I have been busy working double shifts to payback days my colleagues have been working for me. I had a cup of green tea which I had drunk a few days ago and the cup was still beside my bed and the green tea leaves were still there with mold growing inside. After having breakfast and packing my bags I had to make a series of phone calls to my grandfather, mother [View Full Entry]

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It is officially the last day of my foolhardy North African adventure (volume I). It has been packed. Did I actually say that I would be able to relax in Tunis? I vaguely remember using the words 'chill out'. Today I went to my first and second legit museums of my entire 6 week trip. I am so le cultured. I visited mostly all the old Carthaginian ruins near Tunis in the 35 degree, humid weather. Able to look at the crystal clear blue Meditarranean but never close enough to go in! I shopped for souvenirs, bargaining with shopkeepers, trying to [View Full Entry]

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Due to a sheer apathy, I have not posted in the last couple of days. As in, I was waay to lazy to leave the little oasis I found on Cap Bon. But I get ahead of myself. One only has to read my journal entries of the day and the night from the 9th to the 10th of August. To say the least, I was a wee bit cranky at my captivity in the Doukhane household in Annaba, and of my 3am scheduled departure time for Tunis. Exhaustion hit me like a hammer in the middle of the day, and [View Full Entry]

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So, long wait but Ive finally made it to Africa. And the Sahara is beautiful in an oh so desolate sort of way. I havent been able to go very far into it yet (I hope to spend longer when I explore the Western Desert in Egypt), but the splendid desolation of searingly hot dunes and terrain so flat and endless that it plays tricks on your eyes is something to see. Also, I have descided that Bedouin-style turbans suit me, and I intend to aquire one when I have the chance. The single most wonderful thing I have found in [View Full Entry]

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...never again will I complain about the Greek alphabet! First of all, apologies for the long silence. I am alive, in Africa, specifically in Tunis, and just starting to recover from the biggest bout of culture shock ever. I am functionally only semi-literate. Tunisia is a francophone country so in theory, although arabic is an incredibly difficult language and I have only a few phrases and cant read the alphabet, I technically have that and the signs in latin alphabet in French to fall back on. In practice, arabic french is incredibly accented. I only realised how much when, in S [View Full Entry]

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