Viaje sin problemas en Túnez

Túnez, noviembre-diciembre de 1999

 Copio a continuación un e-mail de resumen que envié a mis amigos tras el viaje a Túnez. Fui allí sólo en vuelo directo desde Palma. Con la guía del trotamundos y un poco de suerte eligiendo mi itinerario sobre la marcha, di una muy buena vuelta de una semana por el centro-sur de Túnez.
Por cierto, la foto de la portada del Blog es un oasis en Túnez durante este viaje.

Hello my friends:

As some of you know I spend the last week travelling in the south of Tunis. It was a quiet trip without much troubles. The only one appeared the night before my departure because I took my passport and I realized how young I was in that picture. Then I checked when it was done and …the passpord had expired! So leaving the day after at 11:40 I had to go to the police and get a hot new passport early in the morning. It worked fine so I could leave without more trouble.

I travelled by train, bus, hickshiking and louage. Louage is a very nice and cheap way of travelling. It’s a big car or van that works like a bus without timetable. When its full it leaves. If you want to leave earlier you pay for the missing passangers. Almost always was perfect for me except once that I had to wait more than an hour.

I arrived to Monastir, in the West coast of Tunis where I spend the rest of the raining day walking arround, buying a map and reading my guide to decide where to go next. I should have skip that day and take the first bus south but in Mallorca I didn´t had time at all to prepare it and I don’t like to prepare much anyway!. This is what I did the day after and I arrived to Gabes after travelling 4 hours and I didn´t like it at all either. There I saw the palm tree forest that I found it boring. Then I tried to arrive to Matmata to visit it the day after. I manage to arrive to this “troglodite” town late in the night and found one of the hotels build like most of the old houses, like artifitial caves into the earth. I think I was the only guest in the hotel that night.

                                                              Hiking at the rural Tunis

The day after I woke up with the sun to visit the city where they made some shots for Star Wars. It was nice to play some football with some kids while walking down the main street, and I liked the town. Unfortunatelly the Moos Elley Cantina was closed so after taking some pictures I took a bus back to Gabes and then a louage to Tataouine where I changed to a second one. In that one I sit in the back with 3 nice shy bereber girls. My target was a bereber town up in a hill called Chenini. It was also very nice and dry, done in the same color as the sorrounding landscape. I visit it with my backbag and a guide I hired and then we walked to a mosque walking some kilometers from the town. 

                                                             With my friend from the shop in Douz 

 

Afortunatelly I was back in town before the same louage left, so I expend the rest of the day travelling again back to Gabes and then to Douz where I knew they had a marked the day after.

During the day I visited the marked that was probably the only interesting thing in that town where people was spetially nice. They were friendly, trying to sell but not as aggressive as in other places I visited. The guy of one of the shops invited me to have a tea and talk for a while even when he knew I was not buying. Then we had lunch together and have fun before I went to the desert excursion I booked before. I have the address of that guy just in case any of you needs a desert guide in Douz.

We were 4 tourist (an italian couple, a japanese girl and me) and 2 guides for the excursion. We ride dromedaries for two hours and then had a dinner in the desert and slept there. It was nice but a little bit rush. We had fun anyway, dinner was good with sand-bread and spice pasta and patatoes. We all spoke a kind of italian and became good friends.

We four continue together the following day travelling to Tozeur (appears in “The English Pacient”) which was a very nice city and then the italians went back to Gabes while I continued with the japanese to the best part of my trip: the oasis that were at the mountains (Chebika, Mides and Tamerza). We first slept in Nefta which was nice. At least I liked an oasis, and they were two in Nefta!

We had to hickshike to visit the oasis at the mountains and enjoyed them and their small gorges. We had a picknick in an incredible place! Some of the landscape there is like the one in “The English Pacient again”. After visiting the last town we had troubles to get out of there so we expend the rest of the day to arrive to Gafsa. We just slept there and split to continue to Kairouan where people at the marked were too agresive. It was a nice city but I continue quick back to Monastir where I expend the rest of the day waing for my flight back the day after.