Category Archives: Tunisia

We awoke on our final day in Tunisia (and also our fourth anniversary!) with a feeling of great anticipation. Italy, baby! We finished up our final tasks, which including emptying the black water cassette into the nasty pit supplied, which was a particularly unpleasant experience when a splashback from the poorly-designed emptying facility hit me in the face!!! Freaking hell! … Continue reading

We’ve had a very relaxed and pleasant final few days in Tunisia. The caravan park we found, La Pineta, which is fittingly Italian, was great — we were surrounded by pine trees, parked on gravel with patches of thick grass and bright yellow flowers, right beside the beach. There were lots of little birds around us, including a fascinating long-beaked … Continue reading

Success! A whole night and morning with not a whiskey-seeker to be seen! We got up, threw all our warm gear on and headed out into the freezing day in Tunis. We had a big list of things to find — throw rugs to keep us warm while we’re sitting around in Nettle, a laptop stand, keyboard and mouse for … Continue reading

We awoke blearily in darkness with the blaring cacophony of the early morning call to prayer, from a mosque that must’ve been right beside one of our silliest wildcamps ever. We fell back asleep once it had ended, and awoke a little later with village life in full swing around us, horns beeping, engines roaring, people walking by, shouting. Deciding … Continue reading

We left Gafsa today and drove a couple of easy hours north to the town of Sbeitla, a town beside a far more ancient Roman town, Sufetula. Sufetula is now ruins, but quite well preserved ones. Along the way, and for our drive afterwards, we were amazed by our treatment as we drove through little towns — everywhere, people waved … Continue reading

Mmm, toasted stale baguette slices for breakfast today. We tried to put it off another day, but it was time to go shopping, lest we be reduced to dry cereal for every meal, until that runs out and we start on the crumbs we find at the back of the cupboard. As is our way lately, slightly embarrassingly, it wasn’t … Continue reading

We’ve spent a few days of ‘down-time’ in Douz, working on projects — an activity we both love at least as much as actually travelling. But, the time has come to move on. Our new German friends Birgit and Deiter had poetically described the amazing view of the stars from out in the desert, and we were keen to see … Continue reading

Every Thursday, everyone who lives anywhere near Douz swarms in from the surrounding villages to join the weekly market. There’s a square underneath the palm trees where animals are bought and sold; lining the sandy streets there are stalls selling second-hand socks, shoes, belts, clothing of every kind, radios, cellphones, kitchen accessories and whitegoods, furniture, generators, satellite dishes, hoses, tools, … Continue reading

After some back-and-forth between Brahim, the helpful guy at the Douz Camping Club reception with the very throaty Arabic-accented French, and our knowledgeable German friends Birgit and Dieter, we came up with a plan to spend a few hours out in the Sahara on camels. We had the option to do an overnight trip (or even a week-long trip), but … Continue reading

We woke in our ksar, and I walked down to the main street in search of bread and a few other bits and pieces — I ended up with three crisp, fresh baguettes, which we set upon eagerly with Saïd chocolate spread, honey and jam. I filled up our freshwater tank and said farewell to our friend who showed us … Continue reading

We awoke in our Ksar home, to the very loud and rather grating call to prayer coming from the mosque right beside us. Whew! We’ve definitely heard some nicer voices. We dozed for a while and got up, waved to the friendly hotel attendant guy, squinted at our maps for a moment, and headed off, bound for Tataouine. A little … Continue reading