With just a few hours to spare before my ferry leaves from Palermo, Nadia and Alessandro meet me at the bus station. In their pure Sicilian hearts, they’ve realized they can’t let me leave the island until we’ve settled all accounts. Nadia - who’d overslept for our Saturday-morning rendezvous last week - is visibly agitated at the prospect of me missing Mondello Beach, so we cram my bags into the trunk of their hatchback, race into the dwindling daylight, and make it to Mondello just in time to see the sunset over the curved, café-studded coast. Afterward, there’ [View Full Entry]

---

---

Got off the train, took taxi to Residence Karim which turned out to be a GREAT little place to stay; only 25 dinar a night for a double (12.50 each); very well kept with beautiful tiling all around. Right across the street is the palmerie which is HUGE, and they grow all sorts of fruits like dates, bananas, pommegranites (sp), jasmine, etc. Was gonna walk around it, made it past the rodeo of horses and carriages at the front but then got talked into a ride further down the road (started at 8 dinar, but managed to turn it into 20 [View Full Entry]

---

---

Met at Louage station in Douz by fellow who talked us into looking at his hotel. Was good enough for only 10 dinar a night; also signed up for an overnight camel trek the following night (Douz is the "Gateway to the Sahara" in Tunisia). Not a lot going on in Douz; ended up at the Magic Bar for lunch and a non-alcoholic beer. Bar owner was very animated and friendly (everytime he'd hand you something, he'd pull it away and give it to someone else)... decided to come back for dinner as he had some good Bob Marley to listen [View Full Entry]

---

---

Took THREE louages to get to Matmata from Douz (it's not really that far... just the way the connecting towns work). Sometimes you have to wait a while for the Louages to leave (had to wait 2 hours for one in Tozeur); luckily no big waits this day though. Booze in these parts are scarce; with my big 30th birthday in a day or so, we were getting worried. We decided to leave me with the bags at the station in Gabes (one of the connecting towns) while Jen and Jamie went on a mission. Well within 20 minutes they showed [View Full Entry]

---

---

Thought to myself about how weird my tombstone would look if I died on my 30th birthday as we flew to Tataouine at mach 2 in the Louage (even the locals looked uneasy). Tataouine disappointingly really doesn't have a lot to offer. Stayed at a slightly fancier hotel since it was my birthday! Walked around town a little but mostly stayed at the hotel with "the soldiers" (beer). Jen bought me a cool "Jedi" robe that all the older locals wear, Jamie got me 2 local hats, drank peach cooler that was in a champagne-style bottle, and even got a cake!! [View Full Entry]

---

---

Spent our final day in Tabarka walking down to the end of the beach and back; locals call it the tourist beach and its where all the resorts are (much like Mexico and every other less-fortunate country with nice beaches). Made me a little nervous because resorts were pretty much deserted and I think the one we're heading to in Sousse might be the same. Sad to leave the great little hotel, we headed to Le Kef the next morning. Le Kef is a smallish mountain-top town with a cool Kasbah at the top; main reason we chose Kef was because [View Full Entry]

---

---

Got off ferry after dark; customs was funny... supposed to fill in sheet for weird things we were importing into the country but we didn't really understand it, so we didn't do it, played dumb and kept walking. Two big guys wanting to drive us in their cars into town; we went to cab instead and watched a shouting match between the 3 or 4 of them. Welcome to Africa. Sped excessively to town in an early 90's Honda Civic that smelled of burning electrical components; driver turned out to be fairly nice and dropped us off in front of the [View Full Entry]

---

---

Och jag är tillbaka i bloggrike. Fast ut i öknen kom jag inte den här gången. Min kompis Caroline skulle ha varit med på resan och gjort egna reportage, men världens bästa Johan, Carolines man, skadades allvarligt i en bilolycka på Irland. Olyckan inträffade dan innan Caroline och jag skulle åka. Allt ställdes på ända, det kändes nästan som om livet om inte tog slut, så i alla fall tog en paus. Chock och sorg, massor av oro och snabba beslut. Caroline åkte till sjukhuset i Belfast med första bästa flyg, där är hon fortfarande, Johan lever men är skadad, ena [View Full Entry]

---

---

This is a story about my trip to Tunisia. After having said goodbye to Hel and Scott in Agrigento i made my way up the coast (via Selinute) to Trapani to catch my Ferry to Tunisia on the 4th. I meet up with 2 Aussie blokes on the boat (Henry & Andrew) and they were kind enough to lend me there guide book to Tunisia so i could suss out a plan of action when i got to Tunis. I was getting quite excited about all the things i was going to be able to see over the next week- Carthage, [View Full Entry]

---

---

In February this year I was sitting in a lecture room on a big red boat crossing the Drake passage and one of the first questions we were asked was this... "How many people here are visiting Antarctica because it is your seventh continent?" Well, I suddenly realised that during all my previous trips it was something I had never actually considered, and later that evening in our cabin, myself and new cabin mate Sally spent some time trying to figure out just exactly how many continents we had both travelled and what was left. Even so , this year was [View Full Entry]

---

---