Travel with Manfred

Travelogues from around the world

TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document without a fee, provided that the person conspicuously and appropriately publishes on each copy the appropriate copyright notice and these terms and conditions for copying, distribution, and modifications. Changing this document or charging a fee for distribution or using this document for a financial profit is not allowed. Including this document in a publication that is for sale is not permitted.

This document solely expresses the author's current opinions. It in no way expresses the opinion of any other legal entity. This document does not claim to be correct, complete, or factual. Reading it is at your own risk.

Copyright © 2001 by Manfred P.. All rights reserved.

Dec 24 - 31, 2001

On the Crossroads

Taking it Easy in Tunisia

by

Manfred P.

Keywords: Tunisia, Tunis, Sousse, El Jem, Mahdia, Kairouan, tourist, travel trip report, travel log, travelogue.

It was the typical last-minute reaction. The urge to go somewhere came up, but it was three days before Christmas and all flights were full or expensive. On top of that I was lazy, not willing to stress myself out with traveling everyday. Given these facts, a tour operator package with flight, hotel, breakfast and dinner included was the right solution. It was a quick decision. Three days after deciding to go somewhere we sat on a plane to Tunisia. It was the 24th of December, and as the Holy Night approached and the shepherds gathered around their flock, we were shuttled from the airport to our hotel in Sousse.

At 11:15 p.m. we arrived at the hotel. We were tired and the special Christmas gala that we had to pay compulsorily had finished half an hour ago. We were not surprised. These tour operator packages are always subject to nasty surprises. At least we were served some dinner. With other Spaniards from the same flight we "celebrated" the Christmas dinner. The best part of the day was actually to finally fall into bed, to be able to sleep, and not to have to set the alarm clock for the next day. And sleep we did, till 1 p.m. the next day. It was invigorating, 12 hours in bed, just resting. That gave some fresh energy and set our mind into a more calm vacation mode.

History

The Phoenicians had their world power centered in Carthage. When the Roman Empire got mightier and mightier, the Romans and the Phoenicians battled for supremacy for more than a century. When the Romans finally won they were so furious with rage that they destroyed about everything Phoenician they could find in Tunisia. The pendulum of power had swung from one side to another. The Romans rebuilt the country and installed themselves as the new power. The rebuilding effort was worth the money as only a few years later more than half of the wheat of the total Roman Empire came from Tunisia. Today this would be impossible, the country is a lot drier and big portions are deserts.

As the Roman power weakened the pendulum swung again. Now it was the time for the Arab. In the years 670 the Arabs started to spread. They made Kairouan their Holy City and from there they spread their power and their religion: the Islam. While the political power changed many times afterwards, the religion would never change again.

Time doesn't stop and the pendulum swung again. There were the Berber tribes, they were the original settlers of Tunisia and with the help for the Berber tribes in Morocco they gained control of big portions of the country. For a period a Berber woman, claimed to be a strong warrior, ruled portions of the country.

As the pendulum kept swinging the Turks ruled the country and then came the French. The French governed the country from roughly 1850 till 1955 and made French the second official language of the country and strongly linked the Tunisian economy with the French one.

As one can see a lot of people came and went. Today the people that come and go are the tourists like us.

Everyday Life

The tourist infrastructure is more or less perfect. From banks to change your money, to satellite TV with stations in German, English and Spanish, ATMs, gas stations to restaurants everything is available in convenient locations. The airport is quite new, at least the international terminal. The airport is built with style and taste. The shops are all in a consistent Arab style. The gates are in the form of an Arabic gate and on the walls are replicas of famous Roman mosaics.

In post Sep-11 times the security at the airport is especially tight. People with sneakers have to take them off, place them in the X-ray machine and walk through the X-ray scanner in their socks. But the security guards haven't lost their humor yet. When we got on the plane in Madrid we noticed a Spaniard, some 28 years of ago, with his head nearly shaven and a long straight brown beard some 10 or 12 inches long. Later it turned out that he was staying at the same hotel with us in Tunisia. There in the hotel he then told us what happened to him at the airport at the security check. The officers told him with serious faces that he looks like Bin Laden and that they have to check him carefully. They ordered him to step aside and to open his entire luggage. They rummaged a bit through his bags and then they all started smiling. They padded him on his shoulder and told him it is just a joke. All smiles now they told him to move on and as goodbye they laughingly said "Bin Laden good" and gave him 2 thumbs up. A bizarre kind of humor.

It is funny to see the police hitch hiking on the highways to get to work. Apparently there shortage of money and there are not enough police cars, so if a cop needs to go to the airport for work for example, he hitches. Not very fast, but I like it because it is quite environmentally friendly. Talking about the environment, you will also find bicycle riders on the freeway. Certainly the environmentally best way to get from A to B. Next to the highway are the farmers plowing their fields with the mules.

Sousse

Our first exploratory walk followed the beach from our hotel all the way to the center of town. This first impression was quite informative. It was winter and clearly the low season. The hotels were sparsely booked and the beach was nearly empty. Just a few lost souls like us were strolling along the beach to catch some fresh air. The beach bars were shut down and closed and it seemed that they were in this state throughout the whole winter. Some hotels were also shut down, giving the impression of a ghost town. The string of hotels doesn't stop. There are many dozens of very large hotels. In July and August when the European take their vacations this must be a mad house and the beach teeming with tourists like in an anthill.

Other hotels on the beach were in a dismal state. The grass of the lawns was dead and brown, the swimming pools were empty and littered with trash, the shadow-providing palm-thatched parasols rotten and in one case the glass and metal sculpture in the center of the swimming pool was broken and completely rusty. In this case I wasn't sure if the hotel was only abandoned for the winter or abandoned until a new buyer was willing to start the business again.

And in between these 3, 4 and 5-star hotels were empty lots of sand with huts like in shanty towns, built with wooden sticks, left over bricks, metal sheets and all sorts of other recycled materials that had once a different objective. The rich and the poor were right next to each other. And it is quite probable that when you look out your hotel room window of your 5-star hotel that your view not only covers the sea but also the ruins and shacks to the left and the right of the hotel. The contrast couldn't be any stronger.

It was an interesting walk along the beach. You don't get bored if the scenery changes constantly from rich to poor to rich to poor. Before getting to the center of town we reached the beach walk. Here the luxury hotels are separated from the beach by a major road and the beach walk we were on. These guests most likely preferred the heated pool anyway to the ocean. The beach walk finishes at a tip, a tiny peninsular also covered by a hotel.

From here it is straight on to the harbor or landwards towards the real center of the town. Sousse is not only a big town but also an old one. And like any old town in this region or in the Islamic world, it has a medina. A medina is nothing else but the old city center, which is frequently encircled by tall city walls as a defensive measure and accessible through several large and well-ornamented gates called "babs" that carry names such as "Bab Jedid". Sousse has a nice well-restored medina and its fortified wall. It is impressive. Some 25 feet tall, 3 miles long and connected to the outer world trough no less than 5 gates. The wall is in great state all throughout, but its most impressive portion is the portion of the northwestern corner where the wall is also part of a fortress. Unlike in Morocco where the fortresses (kasbahs) are frequently built with sand here in Tunisia the kasbahs are dominantly built with rocks.

Inside the medina are the traditional Arab-style markets and bazaars called souks. These are places with tight alleys, crowded streets, tons of tiny shops and one can get easily lost. The souks in the medina of Sousse are quite nice. You will be able to find about anything you can possibly buy in Tunisia here in these souks. Also in the medina is the Great Mosque. Every town has a "Great" Mosque. The name doesn't necessarily imply that it is actually great. From the outside there is very little to see, just a plain wall. People must be very religious. The medina is small. Nonetheless I counted 15 mosques. That is 15 religious centers in less than one square mile. Many mosques however are not very appealing from the outside. They sometimes appear just like ordinary houses.

More visible to the eye is the fortification tower from the 8th century. It is called Ribat. Date palm trees surround it and if you are hungry you can pick dates fresh from the tree. The medina is on a slanted area, falling towards the sea. This means that the part further away from the coast is higher and from there one can get some nice views of most of the town. Here is also where a second fortification was built, on the highest spot of the medina. It too has a tower that can be seen from far around.

Once a week is market day, and such that the vendors can sell in various villages, each village selects a different weekday as market day. This way, the venders travel from town to town in a never-ending circle to offer their goods. The market day in Sousse is Sunday and the market is in a gigantic empty outdoor parking lot in Souk el Ahad. It was a mass of people teeming over piles of clothing, shoes and similar items. Most items for sale were everyday items of little interest to tourists. The exceptions were pottery, metalwork and spices. We arrived late at the market and the first stands were already packing up. While this is usually a disadvantage, in our case it turned out to be an advantage. At a stall where the owners were just placing the last cases of pottery on their truck we made the last purchase of the day. Since there was no time left to negotiate the prize as the owner was clearly in a hurry to leave, we walked away with a bargain. 3 cheap pieces of hand-painted and hand-made pottery.

The medina is really the only highlight of Sousse. Every day we spent a little time in it, and every day we discovered something new: A new street, a new shop, or a new view of the city. North and northeast of the medina are the newly built hotel and residential areas. We strolled through them but nothing to write home about. The only noteworthy area is Port El Kantaoui. It is a suburb, some 4 miles north of Sousse, it is a design-board tourist enclave, a Tunisian-style Disneyworld. On the outskirts are a large car park and a golf course. Then follows a series of nice hotels and in the center of it all is an amusement park with Romans in uniforms and rides for kids and a yacht harbor. The yacht harbor is starting point for sailboat or submarine excursions. It goes without saying that there is no shortage of cafes, restaurants and souvenir shops. Nearly all the cafes have a partial view of the harbor and on a sunny day it can be enjoyable sipping a coffee here. The boring side of the coin is that only tourists pass by your sight. It's a bad place for people watching.

Mahdia

The old entrance and formerly the only entrance into the town was a big gate in the center of the wall that separated the peninsula from the mainland. The wall once went from ocean to ocean. Today only fragments remain, but the gate is still there. It is some 75 feet thick! No wonder it survived the centuries. It is remarkable, the thickest gate we have seen so far. It feels like a tunnel as you walk through it. It gets dark and a few vendors sell their goods inside the tunnel. Primarily they sell hot food, which you can smell well in the darkness and you don't have to see all the details.

Not far from the gate lies the Great Mosque with its square. It is plain from the outside, like a fortress. The undecorated walls reach 20 feet and a single entrance gate leads to the inner square. On this inner square tourists are still allowed. Joining the inner square is the actual mosque, which is off-limits to non-Muslims. The inner courtyard is still very simple and with few adornments. The arches and columns that support the roof of the pathway surrounding the inner courtyard provide the only charm.

Where there is a great mosque there is usually also a fortress. These buildings reflect the religious and the political power. Both were competing. The fortress is built once again on the highest spot of the peninsula. From the towering walls one can see the whole peninsula. That was obviously the purpose of the building, to be able to have a watchful eye on everything. To one side a cemetery surrounds the fortress. Sitting on the wall of the watchtower we observed as they opened a grave, dug around and placed the found bones in a bucket. Eventually the bucket was full and as crown the skull was on the top of the rest of the bones. Scary scenes. I took a picture anyway. I might be useful next Halloween.

At the end of the peninsula are two maribouts, burial places of holy man of the Islam. These maribouts are always small white buildings with a round dome. It was an interesting view as right between them was a lighthouse. Following the coastline, our path crossed some ruins right on the waterfront. Very little was left over. Just a small portion of a gate and a tiny piece of a wall stood there somewhat lonely. The rest had absolutely vanished. When I saw it I thought to myself: That looks like a neat place for fishing.

My thought was not so naive. Fishermen were close by. And as we walked on we found a harbor. This one was really unique. The coast here was rocky and in ancient times they created the harbor by cutting it out of the rocks. There is a little entrance, an opening to the sea and the rest is a perfectly rectangular harbor cut out of the rocks by stonemasons somewhere between the 8th and 13th century. It was picturesque. Even more so as it was close to sunset and some first colors of red added to the attractiveness of the scene. The historic harbor, the boats moving gently with the tiny waves, the fishermen sitting around and old rotten wooden boats scattered around on the rocks. Inside the fortress was a tiny museum and it had an old painting of the harbor. In this old painting the harbor appeared exactly like today. Centuries without change.

Tunis

All the Roman treasures from around the country were gathered in the Bardo museum. If you want to see the best of the best pieces and have too little time to travel to all the different original Roman sites spread throughout the country, the Bardo is a great substitute. It specializes on Roman statues and mosaics. Of both items it has more than hundred pieces. The mosaics impressed me particularly. Some of the mosaics housed in this museum are bigger and better than the best pieces I have seen in Rome and Italy. The size of some of these mosaics is astonishing. The biggest ones measure 30 by 30 feet. Nearly all mosaics were originally the floors of Roman houses, their carpets so to speak. For better viewing most pieces have been placed upright on the walls. This way they can be seen in their entirety. The most popular themes were the ocean and wildlife. The ocean was represented with women riding on dolphins or fish jumping put of waves. The wildlife scenes ranged from lions, leopards, bears, bulls and boars. It surprised me that among all these mosaics not a single one had military motives, no solders and no weapons were depicted in the mosaics.

When the museum was built mosaics where not only displayed on the walls but also placed, like in the original houses, in the floor. Only later did they become more conservation-aware and they realized that a horde of tourists stampeding over the mosaics is not the best for the protection of the 2000-year-old masterpieces. To protect them a green carpet-like plastic cover was placed on top of them. Unfortunately this not only protects them but also conceals them from the view.

Another interesting part was a tiny section of masks that were used in the Roman theaters. Facial expressions were exaggerated to send a clearer message to the audience. These expressions were just interesting, from amusing to attention grabbing.

In the afternoon we explored the souks of Tunis. They are not outstanding. The souks in Sousse are equally interesting. The only distinctive feature was the souk of the chechias. Chechias are the traditional headwear of the men. Red flat hats made of soft wool and shaped into the form of a small pot.

Not far from the chechias souk in the masses of the people on the street my girlfriend became nearly victim of a theft. A guy was following us. She felt something in the back and turned around and saw the same guy that somehow already caught her attention before as being very close to her. As she looked at him he quickly disappeared. Only now had we realized what had happened. He had managed to unzip a compartment of her small backpack. It was wide open but fortunately nothing was missing. She had turned around just in the right instant. After the fact she remembered that she noticed the man before but didn't know why and it rang no bell. No it was clear that he was following us for a while already.

From this obvious form of theft we plunged into the next more subtle and less illegal form of robbery: sales. We went shopping for a mirror. Sales tactics are the same here as in any Arabic market. Haggling and long negotiations are the core of a purchase. We saw a mirror for the bathroom that my girlfriend liked. We started at 400 Dinars (about US$300). From 400 it went to 380, to 350 to 300. We talked and talked. About the quality. That it is nice, but not quite what we are looking for. We spent 30 minutes, standing there and talking back and forth. At the end the price stood at 115. But as the minutes passed my girlfriend was less and less convinced that this was the mirror she wanted. At 115 Dinars we stopped the negotiation and just walked out the door.

Half an hour later we walked into a different store and bought a different mirror. The sales tricks are always the same. The vendor starts at price 2X. You can then quite quickly negotiate to 1.5X. As the prices starts falling below 1.5X he assures you that he bought it for the amount X and if he sells it to you for less than X he would make a loss. He explains then that to regular tourists he sells if for 2X, but for you -- since you are such a good negotiator and his close friend already -- we will sell it for X+1. He claims that he, the poor guy, only makes 1 lousy Dinar profit. He will even go as far as act insulted if you offer less than X. The truth of course is that he bought it way below X and if he can sell it for X he makes ample profit.

One trick that was new to me was the following. You walk down the street and the shop owners all stand in their doorways or on the street. A shop owner then asks something like this: "Hello friend. Where are you from? Ah. Nice country. Good people. How much does a shruna cost in your country?" You natural reaction of course is: "What is a shruna?" The shop owner then responds with "What? You don't know what a shruna is? Come here I show you what it is." Then he pushes you into his store and he has achieved what the trick is all about. He got you into his store. A shruna or whatever other words they use does not exist and the whole plot is just to lure you inside the store. He will then show you anything he is interested in selling to you. The trick worked on me. I gave exactly the expected answer "What is that?" and then I walked right into the store. But after you have fallen for it once, it wears off and you won't fall for it again. The second time I still asked what it is and the shop owner tried to get me into the store, but I refused to enter and just kept asking that he explains me verbally what it is. He was a bit perplexed. Obviously that was not the expected response. From the third time on I just ignored it altogether.

Like anywhere else in Tunisia, nowadays these souks are just places to sell, it is rare to find someone producing the goods here. Most of the goods are made in factories. These factories however might be factories where they mass-produce hand-made goods, like pottery. Some goods are hence hand-made but still come from the factory.

El Jem

Later in the centuries it was used as a defensive structure during revolutions and thereby a third of the coliseum was destroyed. Today it is the home of open-air theater performances during the summer. We inspected the underground tunnels and the underground rooms where the animals and their victims were held before the show. The center had a movable sliding floor, as to surprise the audience. This door could be moved below the sand and additional wild animals could out onto the "stage".

It is an impressive structure. Large and colossal. The setting is unusual, as right next to the coliseum and visible from within through the gaping whole of the destruction made centuries ago lies a mosque. If not for the mosque you might think you are in Italy.

Beside the coliseum there is little else. A vegetable market is not far from the center. Trucks loaded to the brim with fresh peppers stood in the parking lot. It was an intensive red, so many spicy peppers piled up. Across from the market was the butcher. The tradition of the butchers here is the hang the head of a slaughtered cow outside the butchery. This signals freshness of the meat. It sort of signals that the cow was freshly slaughtered and that now is the best time to buy the meat. That all makes sense if you are the average person here who does not own a refrigerator. But is a gruesome picture. A bloody head of a cow dangling of a metal hook in the dusty street does not increase my appetite. The sunshine and the flies don't make the picture any nicer, or me any more likely to buy meat. On one occasion the dangling cow had its long tongue sticking out. It was worse. The tongue was blue and even thinking about that scene makes me lose my appetite. A blue long tongue sticking out of a blood head of a cow is not what we call advertising.

What could be better than a cow head dangling in front of the butchers? A camel head. Yes, I have seen that too. A camel head and the camel feet on hooks for everyone to see. Camel bones are actually valuable. They are used to make jewelry and the mirror that we bought in Tunis has some camel bone in the frame as decoration. Whenever the sales guy sells you an item like this he claims that camel bone is as valuable as precious stones. I think it is all a lie. How can a camel bone be precious if you can go to the butcher and buy a camel leg there? Not to mention that there are thousands and thousands of camels all over the country? I really think that the story about the value of camel bones is another invention to pull the dollars out of the wallets of the tourists.

Kairouan

As expected there are several mosques in the medina. The Great Mosque is the most famous one. Again, like all the other mosques we have seen in this country it is austere from the outside. 30 feet high walls separate it from the rest of the world. On the inside is a simple open courtyard. A lot more decorated are the mausoleums Zaoula de Sidi Sahab and Zaoula de Sidi Abid el Ghariani. These mausoleums are open to the public and there beautiful inlays adorn the walls, painted glass is used for the windows, the floors are made of colorful tile patterns and the ceiling is a work of art as well. What a difference to the mosques.

The Zaoula de Sidi Sahab was especially festive when we were there as a wedding was on going. It was obviously a wedding in the circle of a wealthy family. The people were very well dressed. Several video cameras were rolling to store the event on tape for eternity. The bride was posing for photos and was in a white and black dress and on special shoes. These are ceremonial shoes with heels of maybe an inch and a half and are silver plated on the outside. We have seen shoes like this before in the windows of jewelry stores.

All over Tunisia the favorite colors for houses are white and blue. The medina of Kairouan is a good example. Many of the houses have their walls painted white. As contrast the wooden doors and the window shutters are painted in a light and cheerful blue. It is a color combination that is pleasant, certainly to my liking. The impression is perfect when you walk through a street and all houses use the same color scheme. The houses are all slightly different, have different height, slightly different door shapes, different window sizes, but all are in white and blue. It makes for a harmonic visual impression.

After returning to Sousse in the evening we had another strange but unpleasant incident. It was already after sunset and we walked along the beach to the hotel. Given that it is a 2-mile distance we walked for 45 minutes. At this time of the day the beach was practically empty. As we strolled along, a local guy walked towards us, following the waterline but in the opposite direction. In the second as we passed each other the man grabbed my girlfriend. The whole event just took one second and he walked on as if nothing happened. My girl friend yelled some nasty words at him, but he didn't bother to turn around or respond. I didn't understand the whole thing. He just wanted to wipe his wet hands, he just wanted to piss off some tourists, or he is so perverted that he gets sexual pleasure out of laying his hand on a woman for a second. I don't know, but it wasn't worth it to overreact. Just another lesson for the future: Next time it is advisable to change sides and to put oneself on that side that is between the approaching stranger and your girlfriend.

Summary

Tunisia and Morocco however also have their differences. Tunisia has a higher living standard. Accordingly the prices are higher. To some degree the prices equal those in Europe. The infrastructure of Tunisia is better, the roads are in good shape, and the trains and buses run on time. Everything is more westernized in Tunisia. The people are better of, the cars are better, the Islamic culture is a bit more liberal, and given the better infrastructure it is easier to travel around within the country.

Given the higher living standard and being more westernized than Morocco is a double- sided sword. While it is an advantage on one side, it is also a disadvantage from the side of the adventure tourist. The authentic experiences are more intensive in Morocco. The souks, the markets, are more "real", more an experience from the middle ages, more original, more captivating in Morocco than in Tunisia where the tourist influence can be noted everywhere. Craftsmanship is more easily found in Morocco. In Morocco you can find many stalls where you can see things being made. In Tunisia in comparison you can only find stalls where things are being sold. The adventure is purer in Morocco.

So, if you look for adventure with all its positive and negative facets from thrills, exotic views and stunning performances, to hardship, unpaved roads, and getting stranded in the middle of nowhere, head for Morocco. If you look for an easy ride with similar, but slightly more diluted experiences, go to Tunisia. Here you will find the same things: Islam, kasbahs, medinas, souks, sand desert, camels, and beaches, but all in a more westernized state.