The last thing I wrote about was the coliseum at El Jem. That was pretty impressive. You could even walk underneath in the passageways where they kept the slaves prior to their being fed to the lions. The lions themselves were kept on the same level as the main field of the coliseum, in little pens around the circumference. The slaves were brought up to that level on manual lifts - powered by humans and systems of pulleys. The rest of the levels were for spectator seating.

After El Jem, we went to the Bardo museum where we saw lots of gorgeous original mosaics from the Roman era, as well as sculptures, statues and busts of gods. There tons of Aphrodite and Jove depictions, but not a one of Athena. I was a li
ttle upset by that. But maybe they used to be around, but were ruined by time, the elements or careless people. Also at the Bardo, we ran into a pack of eastern European teenage models. Seriously. They were all ridiculously tall, ridiculously thin, had long hair, short skirts and heels that were really impractically tall for walking around anywhere, much less a museum. They were photographing each other striking poses all over the place and seemed trained - in a Pavlovian way - to respond to the sound of a clicking/beeping camera. My father was taking a picture of a staircase while a model was walking in it and she turned around and struck a pose for him when she heard the camera going. Here is the result:

After that, we drove further off towards the desert and stopped at a restaurant in Sfax for lunch. That food was OK - not great, not horrible. Chicken cutlet, rice, veggies, olives, bread, and some fruit for dessert. The next stop was more along the lines of the desert.

Basically, the Tunisian landscape I observed could be broken down as such. Where we stayed in Hammamet, you had a “typical” Mediterranean beachside resort community. Tons of hotels and souvenir shops and palm trees and landscaping. If you drive 10 minutes away from there, you were in what you might consider to be a Northern African city: lots of little shops - bakeries, butcher shops, tailors, greengrocers, and places called “fast food” which served sandwiches and pita bread. Nothing was higher than one story and these little shops were interspersed with residences, complete with backyards and grazing goats. On the streets, there were lots of people on bikes, women walking wearing traditional head coverings and lots of women walking around in modern Western dress, head uncovered and chatting with men and women both.

About an hour outside of that area, the landscape became a little more Mediterranean and looked like Greece or Italy or even France (though not Mediterranean). There were green and brown fields of grape, fig, and olive trees in rows, extending off into the horizon, and lots of little farm houses and residential buildings off the roadways.

A little past that, the cacti started appearing. You’d see a HUGE growth of agave cactus with some of the orange flowers blossoming. There were still fields, but these tended to be fig trees and almond trees, not grapes or olives. The soil began to look lighter brown and dustier and soon, there were palm trees, agave, and shrubs, but no more fields. Here was where we saw some interesting gas stations. While in the city described above there were some Shell gas stations and others (written in Arabic, so I didn’t know the names), once you got out well into rural/almost desert country, “gas stations” were tables set out by the side of the road by people living along the road. They had big jugs of gasoline stacked up underneath and on top of the tables and had a hose at the ready. You’d pull over and they would siphon the gas into your tank from the stash at their “station.” Here’s one such gas station.

After this area, you get into the real desert terrain. No more little homes, no more fig trees or almond trees. It’s all sand, shrubs and palm trees. It was here that we stopped at a man-made oasis and saw how they climbed palm trees to pick dates.

It was by now late in the afternoon/early evening and we approached a large gate with two open arched at the end of the road. Beyond this gate, it was desert. The gate marks the beginning of the desert and the end of roads and gas stations and creature comforts. We made a right turn and drove to a building stationed off on the right of the gate where there were many camels sitting in the sand. Here, we were going to take a camel ride into the desert - caravan style with other people.

We got dressed in large robes and had our heads wrapped in cotton cloths to protect our heads and necks from the sun. We learned how to get astride the camel (get on, and HOLD ON) and our guide started us off into the desert. My sister’s camel was a girl and mine was a boy. They seem to like to be in pairs… whether for social or mating reasons, I don’t know. I didn’t speak enough French to communicate this question to the guide. It’s a pretty amazing vantage point; camel feet are so incredibly well-adapted to the desert sands and walking upon them. Their feet don’t exactly step on the sand so much as spread out over it. While our feet spread a little bit when we put our weight down on them, camel feet almost look like they’re water balloons that only stretch to a certain point… they gently lay themselves over the sand, covering a great deal of surface area and not pressing deeply into it at all.

They also handle dunes really well - the ups and downs are no problem for the camel, and while I admit to some anxiety before the first big one, it became thoroughly enjoyable after a while… like a really slow rollercoaster. With hair.

Once that fun was done, we went to a hotel not too far from the desert gate. We ate, we slept, we got up at 4 am to get on the bus and see the salt lake at Chott El Jerid. It had rained in the previous weeks, so there was some moisture and some “ponds” had formed in the salt desert. The various minerals in the salt don’t exhibit any color when dry, but when they interact with water, they change color. So, the one little lake was bright pinkish-red, while another was blue and yet another was green… all simply because of the minerals in the salt. Because it’s all salt, there was absolutely NO vegetation… no birds, no insects. Nothing. There were, however, souvenir stalls on the opposite side of the road and those merchants had two really cute puppies who ran around impressing the tourists with their adorableness.

We saw the sun rise over the sahara and that was a pretty cool site. After that, we headed to Matmata. Part of the original Star Wars film was shot at Matmata (though the bulk was shot in Tatouine, Tunisia - named Tatoouine in the movie… nice stretch, Mr. Lucas!). The place looks like some sort of brown-coppery moonscape, or a really shallow Grand Canyon, with no river at the bottom. It made for some lovely views, though. After that, we visited a Berber “troglodyte” home. Troglodyte homes are the homes built underground in shallow caves (natural and manmade) and that have one large open-to-the-sky atrium area which allows in natural light. It was much cooler inside and it was amazing to think this was because it was a few feet underground.

I felt a little uncomfortable there, though, since this was a family’s home and they invited people in to collect “tips” from tourists for letting them view their home. The main “attraction” was a very old woman who was dressed in traditional Berber clothing, had her hands and fingernails stained with henna from preparing a relative for her wedding earlier that week, and had tattoos all over her face also in the Berber tradition. She was beyond ancient. I felt like she was being treated like a sideshow attraction, in a sense. “Look at this woman! She lives underground! Can you believe it??”

I don’t know if I’d like knowing that my weekends weren’t mine since a tour group could come traipsing in at any time. However, I also felt a little weird since it was obviously no longer as “primitive” a dwelling as our tour guide would have us believe. They had electricity, a television, a washing machine and dryer, etc. The woman’s daughter (a mother herself) sat down in a little enclave in one of the walls and got out a huge stone which was split in half horizontally. She lifted one portion and poured some grain between the two pieces. I realized this was her millstone… and she had a stick she pushed in a hole down the center of the two stone pieces and then another stick which was tied across that stick perpedicularly… which she used as a handle and ground the grain with it to make flour. Pretty cool, but I doubt she still made flour that way daily to bake (since I saw bags of flour in her kitchen.)

We then went and saw some waterfalls in Tunisia… they were terribly small - even when compared to some smaller local falls around my part of NJ - but are considered to be the Niagara Falls of Tunisia. I can understand why, though, so let’s not get all angry at Eva. Where water is rare… blah blah blah.

We had a long drive back to our hotel and so we went back.

I slept incredibly well that night and the next day, I did nothing but sit by the pool or the Mediterranean Sea, reading books, napping and getting some sun (though I did apply and reapply sunscreen.) I even went swimming with my sister… which was nice. I got a little bit of color, which was good. I didn’t want to burn or get melanoma.

I think I’m almost done for today’s entry. My damned wrist hurts a lot again. Ugh. And I have to do laundry.

Allow me to tell a quick New Jersey story. On Saturday, I spent the day with my friend Theresa. We went to the local warehouse shopping place and I showed Theresa the large variety of organic products they now sell - produce, yogurt, milk, eggs, rice, juice, etc. We returned home in the early afternoon and as we were getting out of the car, we heard the sound of shattering glass in my backyard. I ran back there to see what was going on - thinking someone had broken into our home or something else not good.

Instead, I saw a wild turkey running away with as much of a guilty expression as a turkey can have on its face, and saw a huge pile of broken glass on the grass below one of the kitchen windows. My little brother’s girlfriend was in the kitchen at the time of the shattering (thankfully, the window screen was in and no glass got inside or harmed her) and she called to me, asking, “What happened? Who broke the window?” I replied that I didn’t know, but that a wild turkey had just run away. I asked her if wild turkeys could fly, and she informed me that they could for very short spurts. Hrm. A fifty pound bird flying into a window? That might cause some damage.

I called my mother and left her a voicemail, and in the meantime, I worked with Theresa to cover up the window somehow since it looked like it was going to rain. My brother came home and also investigated. He claimed that it looked like a BB gun had hit it, but there was no pellet anywhere, and no clear impact mark. We all checked it out and there is still debate as to whether a BB pellet or a wild turkey caused the damage, but the fact remains that we have a totally broken kitchen window. We’re going to Home Depot in a bit to buy some plywood or something to board it up until the new window arrives. Plastic bags can only get you so far… then it becomes a security issue.

I had leftover Indian food from yesterday’s dinner for dinner just now, but I think I ate too quickly. My shahi panir is coming back to haunt me a little. And my mother just called me to tell me that she thinks there’s a tick in her leg and when she gets home from work, she wants me to check it out.

UGH. There are far better, more enjoyable, less icky and more mother-daughter-bonding ways to spend a Monday evening, but we do what we must.

At least I had a good day at work. And finished a good book (”The Big Over Easy” by Jasper Fforde). And am watching a good movie (”White Heat” with James Cagney”). A glass of lemonade will cap it off nicely.