Blogs from Tunisia, Africa - page 2

There’s something enchanting about the narrow alleys of a windswept North African medina. For most people, such a description evokes images of Morocco - but I can tell you that Tunisia also deserves to be visualised in the in the same way. Hammamet, the last stop of my week long journey around the country, seemed pretty busy on arrival, not quite the relaxing, beach resort town that I was expecting. Instead it felt like somewhere a bit more...normal. But I was overwhelmingly relieved to have made it there. Thanks to some dodgy food eaten in Tataouine, the all-day drive back up north was nothing short of an ordeal - I was tired thanks to a night of almost no sleep; I was stiff and sore the whole way which doesn't help when you're not able to ... read more

When most think of a romantic, exotic, French-influenced, North African getaway, the country that most immediately comes to mind is Morocco. But the more famous the place, the more touristy it is and after my average and somewhat dramatic Moroccan experience, I think that I may have found a credible alternative; a place with the medinas, the French, the Arabic, the desert and the beaches, sans all of the hassle; Tunisia. Back in Berlin, life seemed to be all falling into place. By this stage, I had now built up a bit more of a financial base, I was settled into my job and I had just moved into my own apartment in one of the most desired areas to live in Berlin - I almost didn’t want to leave. After three years of travelling and ... read more

Thursday, August 30thwe took our first foray out of Monastir. Fortunately for us there has been another American sailboat here and we hit it off with Kathy and Jim. Luckily they also wanted to see more of Tunisia so we hooked up together and hired a taxi/excursion driver for two days, Thursday and Saturday. It is always nice to share expenses and it was a fun time out together. We had told the driver, Alaya, that we were interested in learning more about the history of the area so that is how the itineraries were planned. As both of the days turned out to be 12 hour days covering plenty of history and territory I’ll split the two days up into two blog entries. We were picked up just after 8AM and headed toward our first ... read more

Yesterday we had a long passage and during that time I had a chance to write down a few thoughts - I know that there are still numerous blog entries I need to do to "catch up" with what we have done since my last entry, but thought you might be interested to find out what we did just yesterday. Saturday, August 4th - our last sail of this season. It is coming early this year, but that is the way it worked out with our visa. Weather forecast has been checked and double-checked. All looks good for the 17 hour crossing to Tunisia if predictions hold. Tried to get some sleep last night but neither of us could so just rested. The alarm went off at 1:30AM and we go through all the tasks to ... read more

Friday February 23 - Man these days are long. But I slept later today - until about 6am. I met Felix for breakfast at his hotel at 7:30 and we were on the road by 8am. The destination today was Dougga, one of the main things I was interested in seeing in Tunisia. It’s an old Roman city and has the largest and best intact Roman ruins in all of Africa. It took three hours to get there, so I had some time to read about the history of the country on the ride. At some point, we were pulled over for speeding, but then when they realized we were tourists they let us go. That is so the opposite of what would happen in some other countries, where being foreign equals being pulled over and ... read more