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Published: September 16th 2006
Hard days work
Women and their sheep outside of ToujeneDestination today was Matmata, we stopped in Toujene which is a picturesque little whitewashed village in the mountains, just typical village life. Then drove onto Tijma where we were welcomed into a Troglodyte home (a circular courtyard cut out below the earth and rooms coming off the courtyard), where the couple served us Berber Bread and olive oil and Tea. It was pretty cool being dug out of the ground like that and we can see why as it is much cooler!
Next into Matmata to see the famed Sidi Driss Hotel - Lars Homestead in Star Wars films (which was where Luke Skywalker grew up with his uncle Owen). Part of the hotel still has some of the original set from the film. Sidi Driss was excellent as it had 3 courtyards and they were all connected by underground tunnels, when they opened out into the courtyard it was sunny but nice and cool!
Matmata itself has loads of these Troglodyte homes, some are open to the public but are all hotels, the rest you need to be invited by the locals to see inside. We were lucky enough to experience this in the next little towm called
Techine, where our driver Faouzi did a few laps of the town and wangled us an invite into one which was still being used as a stable for the donkeys, goats and storeroom etc. Pretty incredible to see it, it is such a unique and simple way to live, but we loved it!
We stayed at one of the hotels on the outskirts of town in a Troglodyte style room, that was interesting too. Before dinner we sat down in a cute little 'cafe maure' (coffee room) to play a game of cards. Our Driver Faouzi joined us and taught us an Arabic Card Game - the same as the men we see playing almost everywhere we go - which was called 'Arabei', of which I, (Kelly) won the first round and Faouzi crowned me 'Champion' (pronounced with a very bad French accent!).
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