Tunisia: A Trip of Lessons Learned

Hello everyone. So I'm back in Paris, bright eyed, and bushy-tailed. Well today at least. Monday, after checking in for my flight at 3:45 am, and arriving in Paris around 10:30 to then teach and go to school, I was not feeling as great. So I took a personal day of rest to recuperate from my vacation. And now I'm back and ready to go. I thought I would take advantage of my good nature today to write a post, as I've been receiving subtle, but demanding requests that I better write one, and soon. So because the trip was quite long, I'm breaking it up into countries. Today's post will concentrate on Tunisia. This post will most likely be the longest as it really taught us a lot and was quite eye opening into more adventurous travel. So without further delay, here is our experience in Tunisia.

Day 1 -> February 23rd
We arrive in Paris Orly, which is another airport in the south of Paris. As we are standing in the queue, this woman approaches Kevin and asks if he can take an extra 5 kilos of her luggage with him. You see, airports warn of this, but we didn't think it actually happened. So we said no, as we're not idiots. Just as we were checking in, the police came up and demanded that the check in be closed. Luckily our check in lady rushed us through, so we weren't delayed. We thought the police closed it because of the woman, but we really only understood the French for suspicious baggage over the loudspeaker. This was within an hour of leaving our flat that all this went down. So the flight was delayed, but we arrived in Monastir, Tunisia safely. Missy and I aren't that comfortable with our French, which is the language most commonly spoken in Tunisia aside from Arabic, so we sent Kevin through first. We were good to do this as it turns out there was a problem. We didn't have accommodation booking prior to arriving and this is apparently a grave offence in Tunisia. People were called over, and Kevin was led away. We tried to follow him, but we were told, "one is enough". I was expecting Kevin to return slightly bloodied or be missing for three hours. Turns out he was given priority treatment at the accommodation booth and booked out accommodation with an official guard. We got in a cab and paid 20 dinar, which is around 10 euros. Turns out we were ripped off hugely, but we had no idea at the time. He brought us to our hotel, which was right on the beach, and was gorgeous and so cheap (20 euros between 3 of us). Because we got in late, we just ate dinner (also cheap and endless it seemed). Then we went back to the hotel to sleep.

Day 2 -> February 24th
We were only in Monastir one night. We left the hotel kind of early and saw the Rabat, which is kind of a fortress, and a mausoleum. We wanted to go ride camels in the desert, so we booked a train for Tozeur. It took seven hours. We got second-class because we're cheap. When we first got on, it was packed, but people got off pretty soon after and we were all able to stay together. One thing about Tunisia is that we all had to get used to being stared at. A lot. For uncomfortable amounts of time. For example, over an hour for the last leg of our trip. But we found a place pretty easily and had a great dinner at le Petit Prince. We even had wine, which is harder to find in Arabic countries. We went to sleep in our even cheaper hotel, but missy found herself feeling some aftereffects of her meal. It didn't last long though, and she was fine the next day.

Day 3 -> February 25th
This is one of the best days of the trip, nay, my entire life. We had rented a taxi to drive us into a neighbouring town to take what is called the Red Lizard Train. It's a restored late 19th century train that takes you through the desert and mountains. We got in the taxi, and it was filthy. Missy got, which was henceforth affectionately known as a ‘dirt stache’ because of this. It is literally what it sounds like. Also, seatbelts were non-existent this entire trip. No need to panic now mom, it's done and everyone is fine. This taxi also was not in the best of shape. The speedometer was broken and it was loud as hell. Aaand then it started smoking. And then shut down completely. So we were stranded. Our driver then hailed another cab, took out one of the passengers, and we piled in. He took us to the train while our driver tried to get his car fixed. Before this, we hadn't really seen any tourists. Well, let me tell you, when we reached this train, we found all of them. This trip also had a theme of old people on fancy tours. This is not a common month for young kids to be travelling, and we really saw this. Anyway, the train ride was amazing. It went through the Seldja Gorge. You'll just have to wait for pictures. When we were done, our driver was waiting for us. His taxi was dunzo, so he got us a louage (shared taxi) which he also came in because he was car-less. This guy dropped us off in the square, and then our driver found another taxi to take us back to the hotel. And our day was only half over.

Next up, we hired a 4x4 to take us through the Sahara Desert. We started off with camel rides. This was pretty cool. Not something I’d rush to do again, but cool nonetheless. Missy was not a big fan. So this child was leading Kevin and I, and this other guy was leading Missy. After we passed a hill, all of these women appeared. I thought nothing of it. Until they started following us. So we walked with the camels, and then we got off to run around in the desert. The sun was quite strong, but it wasn't disgustingly hot. At this point we were swarmed by these women who had stuffed camels and bracelets. They would not accept no for an answer and kept yelling 'one dinar'! I literally had no coins on me, so I couldn't do anything. Kevin pulled out his change to see what he had, and that was immediately taken. They left us alone after we wandered for a bit. We mounted our camels again, except for missy. She opted to be harassed on foot instead of riding the camel. She's a trooper. We then got back in the car and drove all around the desert. We saw a ton of mirages. The salt and the sun make it look like water, even though you knew there is none. We also drove up and over dunes. This was wicked. Again, Missy was not such a big fan. Oddly enough, we drove to Tatooine. For those of you who actually have lives and don’t know this, Tatooine is Luke Skywalker's homeworld. Turns out it was filmed in Tunisia and the sets were never taken down. So that was odd. It looks almost exactly as it did in the movie, just worn down. Nearby, there were also remnants of some scenery from the English Patient. The desert was really cool, and one of the best parts of the trip. We didn't have much time left, so we got a night train to Tunis. We bought a ridiculous amount of bread and cheese and got on around 8:30pm. It wasn't a sleeper train, and the lights were never turned off, so it was a delicious ride. There was a baby crying for a good five hours. This drove Kevin particularly insane, as he has to listen to it every day in his apartment. We then arrived in Tunis at 5 am.

Day 4 -> February 26th
The thing about arriving in Tunis at 5 am is that nothing is open and there is no way you can check in to a hotel to get rid of all your bags. So we found a cafe and had some coffees. I think it was less than 3 euros for everyone and we all had croissants, coffee, and juice. We were still on Parisian pricing. We stayed here until 6:30, or until the sun was up enough for us to wander around. We walked to the medina, which is always the oldest part of any Arabic city. All the souks (marketplaces) were closed, as it was only 7 am. As we walked a bit down the alley, and then came back, Missy noticed a guy yell something at us in Arabic. I thought he was just yelling, and Kevin wasn't paying attention. Two minutes later, he came back and SPIT on us. Spit on Missy and I mainly. It got in my hair. We were grossed out, but found a cafe again to sit down in not far away. At the time I saw this random guy walking buy and he looked angry at this transaction. So as we were waiting for our juice I saw him talking with another person on the street. And then missy noticed that a cop was chasing the spitting guy. Then we all noticed that the cop then had the spitting guy in his hand and was walking towards us. He stopped and asked if we wanted to press charges. This was in French, and we didn't really know what he was saying. The cop repeated it, and the guy said that he's sick in the head. The cop then turned to him like he was going to hit him, and the guy cringed. So I quickly said no, we don't want to press charges, and then this guy was lead down a street. The cop returned by himself a couple of minutes later. It wasn’t even 8 am yet.

So we left the medina and looked for a hotel in the French quarter. We dropped off our stuff and went back into the Medina to look at the souks. That was an experience. People try to guess what nationality you are. We got a lot of English, German, Dutch, and Swedish once, and so on. When I said Tunisia was a learning experience, these souks were a large reason as to why. We knew we had to haggle, and that wasn't a problem really. We did get ambushed by this one guy, who chatted us up and wouldn't let us leave his shop without buying something. Kevin kind of got stuck on this one. Missy and I had left, and Kevin was trying to leave, but the guy would throw the thing in his pocket and just be shady like that. He eventually paid for it, around 5 dinar, which isn't a big deal, but I was pretty upset. The guy was rude to me after awhile. I may have overreacted, but I was angry at the time. So we tried to find our way back to the hotel and got horribly lost. Nothing is labelled, and the streets are chaos. We eventually found our way out of the souks, and found ourselves close to a metro stop. We wanted to go to this town called Sidi Bou Said, so we thought we'd take the metro. This also isn't well marked, so we got lost, again. We were tired and cranky by this point, and just took a cab to the city. It was quite pretty, and also filled with tourists. It reminded me of Greece. We wandered around and I paid too much for some prints. We tried to wait for sunset, but were too tired and just went home. The highlight of the day was that for dinner, we each had a sandwich, fries, and a drink for 3 euros combined. This made us feel better. We were all so tired, so we went to bed around 9pm.

Day 5 -> February 27th
A solid 12 hours later, we all woke up. We went to go see the mosque in the medina. In most mosques, non-Muslims are not allowed in, so we were able to take pictures of the outside. We were slightly ripped off, again, because the mosque guy said he could take us to see a view of Tunis. We thought the mosque guy wouldn't be too shady, but we were wrong. Hopefully the mosque got some of that money. We didn't really get ripped off in a huge way (yet). Just the fact that it was constant and no one was ever pure in his or her motives was frustrating. Anyway, the view was nice and we hung around up there for a while. We felt we were owed something, so we stole some tiles. I'm going to get my 3 dinars worth, dammit. After this, we went to Carthage. To anyone who has studied ancient history, that name should ring a bell. The city of Carthage still exists, but the Romans basically destroyed any remnants of the city when they came. Still, it was cool just being there. We wanted to save money, so we decided to take the metro again. This time we got on at the train station, so it was less confusing. We went into some Roman Baths while in Carthage. They were well intact, so that was quite interesting. We took the metro back. And this was the low point of the trip. We got on with a bunch of school kids at the stop. It was rammed. Kids were actually hanging out of the train. The tram operates even when the doors are open. So literally, I mean kids were hanging out and off the tram. After two stops, it became less crowded, so we moved down a bit. When we got off at the train station, missy realized her wallet had been stolen. It was complete shit. So we got back on the tram to go and look to see if she left it anywhere, or if someone threw it away after taking the money. We didn't find it. Some man, an undercover cop, started speaking with Kevin, and Kevin explained the story. He told us to go back to Tunis to fill out a report. Another tram came, and it was rammed. This guy then went to the first class car (they have first and second class everything) and literally yanked kids off the train so we could get on. He also put a 'guard' with us.
So.
Odd.
Anyway, this giant Tunisian man was with us for a while until we got off again to do a ground check. We found nothing and returned home, dejected. Missy called and cancelled her credit card and bankcards, which was another hassle in itself.

And that was how we ended out trip in Tunisia. It was honestly a trip of highs and lows. You could experience something so cool, and then so terrible within minutes of one another. Anyway, it certainly hardened us for the trip. I'm glad we went though. I don't regret it. It made us better travellers, and obviously, left me with a lot of stories to tell. Sorry about the novel. Honestly, Malta and Morocco were comparatively a lot less eventful, so you won't have to read acres of writing.

Will write about Malta next
ciao (or caw as it's written in Maltese)