Travelling the Alphabet — T for Tunisia — roughly 1987
This was one of those Christmases when my sons were with their dad. I didn’t want to go and share someone else’s Christmas and I didn’t want to bear the silence at home without them, but was also relieved to have some time off; some proper down time away from everything.
I went with my ex sister in law. We had been married to brothers and neither relationship had worked out, and for a brief while we formed a sort of alliance, until our lives took us off in different direction once more.
Tunisia was my first sortie out of Europe proper, but seemed safe still as it sat on the edge of the Mediterranean. I didn’t really think of it as Africa but it is of course too. In December it’s not too hot and even though you are near the sea the air is remarkably dry, coming up from the Sahara which trickles its sandy feet into the southern regions of the country.
We were based in Hamamet at a basic tourist hotel with inclusive pool and access to the local beach, but we stayed in the hotel complex mostly for relaxing.
We did spend one morning visiting the local Medina and found it slightly intimidating in its closed-inness and slightly aggressive marketing approach to selling and buying which seemed to be their principal goal in life. I found this applies to many Arabic and other cultures, all desperate for the tourist dosh, but I still can’t seem to get used to it, it is such a different way of life to staid old Englishness and something which I am sure would become fun once you got used to it.
We also booked several trips to visit other areas of the country: Tunis, El Djem, Carthage, the southern desert regions, and a fantastic artists community village on the coast called Sidi bou Said.
So starting here first, found just north of Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, Sidi Bou Said is located on top of a steep cliff overlooking the azure waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The view from Sidi Bou Said is dazzling and so rich in colour, with all buildings painted dazzingly white with blue shutters across all windows — supposedly to distract mosquitos, being coloured like the sky. The colours don’t stop here though, against this backdrop of white we walked down a street with a gentle and more friendly market full of wonderful artisan art and crafts including leather work and woven fabrics of colour arrays that take your breath away
The entire town is simply beautiful, with cobbled streets which preclude motor vehicles, leaving it peaceful for pedestrians. The rich experience of colour continues with flowers like pink orange and lavender purple bougainvillea swags draping across almost every wall and doorway, and beautiful flowing vines hanging throughout. Sidi Bou Said is so beautiful, that many artists have taken up residence here. The town is also said to have inspired famous artist Paul Klee, which you can see in some of his pieces of artwork, and famous writer Andre Gide. Even the small cafes were friendly and welcoming although we only stopped for Chai, wary of losing our trip to stomach infestations from the unknown.
I took many photos of the main craft street market and spent a lot of time looking at them afterwards, such richness of colour really making my senses zing, amazed by how different light can feel in different parts of the world, realising how different the world is from one place to another and how wonderful it was that we lived on this amazing planet with so much to explore.
On the same coach trip and also just north of Tunis are the remains of the ancient roman city of Carthage. Still pretty well preserved due to the dry climate and heat, they are mostly just ground remains with a few walls standing a couple of feet high. The Roman ruins show the opulence of the original roman settlement through just the sheer scale of the Baths of Antoninus, whose main room was 30 metres tall and whose cisterns had a capacity of 60,000m3, and the Basilica of Damous El Karita, the largest in Africa.
It was interesting to learn more about the history of the site though. Legend suggests Carthage was founded by the Phoenician Queen Elissa, known as Dido, in 814 BC. The Greeks, and Carthaginians (Punics) were longstanding rivals in control of a network of trading posts in the Mediterranean, from Spain to Sicily. The Romans, invaded in 146 BC, destroyed the city, then rebuilt it and made it the capital of the rich province of Africa. Some fragile remains of Punic Carthage are still visible; the areas where Hannibal lived, and the Punic ports.
Another day we spent it all in Tunis visiting the museums, and exploring room after room of ancient artefacts. I have to confess that looking at endless roman remains does wear thin after a while when you are on holiday and history is only slightly your thing. I am so much more of an outdoor person too. So memory doesn’t recall much of this day other than that Tunis is an attractive but busy city with a lot of traffic and some lovely buildings. We didn’t venture into the Medina here, somewhat put off by the experience we’d had in Hammamet, but I think two rather naïve thirty something women on their own need to be slightly circumspect where they are uncertain of their own safety and local culture is not known to be very open to western women. Writing this some thirty years later I think how sad it is that women have to think like this still all the time, but apparently we do. I think we may have missed many of its delights but there is always another time perhaps.
Next we took a two day trip much further south to visit El Djem and the impressive Roman Coliseum. This enormous amphitheatre was inspired by Rome and at the point of writing I still have not been to Rome so cannot compare directly, but this is spectacular, and looked at least as amazing as Rome ever does in photos. With so much of it still standing and again in an excellent state of preservation in the dry heat, it took a while to walk around and explore and we could imagine the barbaric entertainment put on here, pitting hunters against wild animals, baking and fighting for their lives in the searing heat of the north African sun.
Leaving El Djem we drove further south to a hotel on the edge of the Sahara, my first visit to true desert and every bit as spectacular as I imagined from physical geography lesson. I have over the years started to value much of what I learned at school but those years were such an endurance and at such a cost. I swatted up in a few joyful hours from books much of what I struggled with and could not embrace as relevant to my life as a child. For instance a book cannot say how vast desert appears to be with its relatively featureless terrain stretching into infinity, the colours mostly being rock and sand based, dryness and shimmering heat. It is stark and harsh and unyielding, and you know you have met your match with desert, but it is also magnificent, wild and untameable, so unapologetically itself. We were taken to a large barren area to see the salt plains where the Med. had effectively dried up and retreated, leaving behind only its salty fingerprints. I took a small scoop, wrapped it in tissue and kept it in a small bowl for years at home until house moving necessitated disposal, but I loved to think of the ancient times when this land was a sea and the world was such a different place to live on.
Our guide looked very annoyed when she was told which overnight hotel we had been allotted to and when we arrived we understood why. It was primitive to say the least, the beds no more than concrete slabs raised a foot from the ground and covered by a thinnish mattress. But it was all very clean and welcoming, our hosts working so very hard to provide us with wonderful food and an evening of Tunisian music and dancing around open fires under the African skies. As young women we managed the hard sleeping surface easily enough and rather arrogantly wondered why older people made such a fuss when they were in such a country with locals who were clearly doing their very, very best. At my age now though, I fully understand!
Early in the morning, just before sunrise for those who wanted an early start, we were taken back into the sandy areas of desert to go for a camel ride across some dunes. Again a first for me, I loved it and found the gentle swaying rocking motion of the camel walking to be very soothing. We walked out to a slightly more raised rocky outcrop and watched the sun come up over the sand dunes, pale yellow and small in the huge sky above the vast undulating plains of sand and rock. It was cold now, almost zero C and it got very cold sitting still atop a camel watching the desert come into colour once more.
To warm up, we were taken to some hot springs which were just concrete tanks in the desert filled with bubbling heated water. We donned our swimming costumes and I had my first experience of natural hot water. It was lovely, only just bearable against skin it was so hot, but in the early morning when the sun is starting to rise the desert is a cool place and the contrast made it even more delicious. Then back to our hotel for a simple breakfast.
On leaving our hotel, the coach drove on across stretched-out dry areas with occasional patches of greenery, mostly palm trees, and inhabited every so often by small settlements. One still stands out in my mind’s eye. It must have been at least a mile or so away; we were driving along a long straight road and could see the buildings for some time slowly coming into view and then fading away again. In the distance were tall rocky cliffs and below them a cluster of houses festooned with multiple swags of bright red garlands. I was told they were strings of chillies drying in the sun but they looked so pretty and unexpected, such a blast of vivid colour in a generally rock coloured landscape.
Next we visited the mountain oasis, an untouched area of desert between two villages called Chebika and Mides. It’s a fascinating place of surprising diversity; beyond the sandy canyon area we saw mudbrick dwellings and a stunning waterfall. The whole expanse is filled with a variety of wildlife too, including tiny frogs, lizards, salamanders, although we weren’t lucky enough to see any of these. Many years ago, this location was used for scenes in the first Star Wars film: A New Hope and also later on The English Patient. You could see Luke Skywalker running across the terrain after his family are killed, from memory of the film.
Not a lot further on we were taken to Matmata which is a small Berber speaking town in southern Tunisia. Some of the local Berber residents live in traditional underground “troglodyte” structures. The structures typical for the village are created by digging a large pit in the ground, open to the sky but invisible from the ground until you are on top of them. Around the perimeter of this pit, artificial caves are then dug to be used as rooms, with some homes comprising multiple pits, connected by trench-like passageways.
We were invited into one home and were amazed by how dry and cool it was underground in these rooms and how incredibly clean they were in spite of being made from the dust and mud of the earth herself. We were shown where they slept and ate and cooked and where they stored their food and grain supplies. It was a multigenerational family way of living and looked very peaceful and simple although I am sure also very hard, and fragile. There were no visible signs of access to water and other things we take for granted. They are so well hidden that these people were not generally known about by the Tunisian authorities until 1967, it was thought only wandering nomadic tribes inhabited this region. That year, intensive, continuous rains flooded the troglodyte homes, causing many to collapse. To obtain help from the authorities, a delegation was sent to the community centre of the region, a town called Gabès. This unexpected visit from these previously unknown people came as a surprise, but help was provided, and the above-ground settlement of Matmâta was built. Once the water dried up though, most of the people continued their lives in re-built underground homes, and only a few of the families moved to the new surface dwellings. Nowadays, Matmata is a popular tourist attraction, and most of the population lives on tourism and folklore exhibitions in their homes. We all left respectful tips and I am sure our tour costs included an entrance fee but I am glad to support such a lovely simple traditional way of life that showed no signs of desperation marketing. Am I too romantically naive and simplistic in my world view?
After these trips it was pretty much the end of our stay in Tunisia. Back in Hammamet, we did manage to fit in a few lovely massages with a wonderful woman from the local town who worked at the hotel but apart from that and some pool swimming, we mostly read, chatted and relaxed until it was time to go back to our lives and me to my boys coming home..
I have to say that even now though, Tunisia was so much more than the original idea of a relaxing holiday in heat for winter, and, like other places along the north African coastline, has so very much to offer if you have the time to explore.
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