The Diary, page 4.
Website up-date 4.
Monday 29th November 2004 3952 miles covered so far in 9 weeks
1234 miles covered in Tunisia
We sent the last up-date just a week ago, after visiting the Libyan Embassy. They had not received a reply from Tripoli regarding our visa and suggested Hedi should phone them in a few days rather than visiting again so soon. This left us free to see a bit more of Tunisia.
Monday 22nd - Saturday 27th
We drove south from Tunis on an excellent toll motorway. Total charges for the whole length, approximately 100 miles, was just over 5Dinars and as 1 Dinar is worth 44p that was pretty reasonable motoring. That reminds me that we gave the wrong fuel prices in an earlier up-date, due to our confusion with the Dinar exchange rate, now we know fuel is only 22p per ltr!
Monday night we camped at a Motorway Service Station and next morning received
several admiring comments on our "beautiful antique van". At the end
of the motorway we headed southwest via Kairouan towards Gafsa through beautiful
countryside, much scrub but also well cultivated in places with high rocky hills,
jebels, rising dramatically from fairly flat country. Several salt lakes with
flamingos feeding. In one area every house and building was festooned with drying
chillis threaded
on string, it looked as though the whole area was covered in Virginia Creeper
in its full autumn glory.
Tuesday night we pulled onto the edge of an olive grove and began to cook supper, there appeared to be no-one around, to ask permission, but we expected someone to come to see us before long. It was dark before there was a knock on the door. We ask the young man if we can stay the night. He appears to be unable to speak but makes it quite clear that we are in great danger from a group of drunks who are planning to beat us up. We note he carries a serious looking cuddgle and prepare to take his advice and move on. The meal is almost ready and needs stowing away carefully before Bill trys to back out. But in the dark he miss judges the distance to the track and in seconds we are deeply bogged down in soft sand. It takes an hour to reach the road but we now know the sand tracks work! Stop at a fuel station only a few miles further on.
Wednesday drive on to Gafsa, a busy oasis town, where it's market day and both
cattle and horses are changing hands on the edge of town and being transported
standing in the back of small, open topped, pick-up trucks. Other trucks are
heavily loaded with carrots, turnips and onions, produced locally. Beyond the
town the land is very barren but planted with row upon row of prickly pear cacti
to slow the flow of water when it rains heavily here, as it does during the
winter. We had
hoped to visit the Selja Gorge by train but understand it only runs during the
summer so decide to take the minor road from Metlaoui through the mountains
to the mountain oasis of Tamerza. The first 4 miles proved to be through the
largest quarry we've ever seen, the road was interesting to say the least, but
the van coped with no problems at all. The mountains beyond are magnificent
and we would like to have camped but foolishly felt too jittery after the previous
nights events. Instead
we parked-up opposite the National Guard Post in the centre of Tamerza.
On Thursday we followed the river which flows from this large oasis through a steep gorge down to the salt lakes, known as Chotts. During the drive we were passed by hundreds of safari vehicles taking tourists from the coast on the round tour of the salt lakes and oasis towns. Herds of camels gathered near every water hole but no sheep and goats and no settlements. By the time we reached Chott Jerid, and the 94K causeway across the lake to Kebili it was raining and visibility poor. In Kebili, as everywhere else there are hundreds of school children on the streets walking to or from school. They just wander along the road, often four abreast, and traffic has to wend its way round them. No one seems to walk on the pavements here, even when they are good ones. Once again the National Guard come up trumps.
Friday we head back north, camping overnight at another Service Station, see the Magnificent Roman Coliseum at El Jem on Saturday before returning to Le Pinede, Borj Cedria, where we manage to ring Hedi. Still no joy with the visa but will ring again on Monday.
Just a couple of things to note
1. Our English cooking gas bottle eventually ran out on 11th Nov. It lasted 6.5 weeks. With a little bit of help from various local people we eventually tracked down local gas and regulators.
2. One of the reasons the gas lasted so long is because Bill made us a "Hay Box" slow cooker (with the hay replaced by polystyrene). This cooks stews, rice, pulses, etc whilst on the move and uses no gas at all once the pot is brought to the boil. It has been a great success.