Tunisia Log Final

Spring Break (27 Feb – 10 Mar 2009) 1) Q & A Before we go any further I think it’s important to field a few of the questions we have received thus far. •

How is school? o School is going well - both of us are now in the middle of mid-terms so things are heating up a bit. It’s sad to say that quality teachers are hard to find (teachers are lacking in their English skills) and as a result the courses seem to be more about what the students make of them rather than what the teacher teaches.

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Also, how is the knee recovery coming along? o The knee is back to normal. Grant has been running on it a little bit and yesterday did some leg presses in the gym. Not to mention the extensive walking that took place while in Tunisia on Spring Break.

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Are you able to get any exercise? o As you may have guessed, the answer is yes. There is somewhat of a hole in the wall gym that we go to most mornings. We also do a substantial amount of walking on weekends when exploring new cities. Alicia has a friend to do yoga with a couple times a week.

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How are Americans perceived here? o For this question, we so far have to break this down into our time in Morocco and our time in Tunisia. I’m sure this will be subject to change also as we explore other Middle Eastern countries down the road, and especially the closer we get to Israel. In Morocco and Tunisia Americans are well accepted mostly, it seems, as a result of the election of Obama. Most of the time when someone asked us what our nationality was and we said American they would spout out “Obama” in a very receptive way. Perhaps it’s enough of a change for them, just to have him in office. Obviously, how they perceive the U.S. presidency is going to be different than a U.S. citizen. For the most part though, I would say that we have been not so much judged by our nationality but by the color of our skin and hair (sounds familiar, being judged by the color of one’s skin?), and our inability to speak either French or Arabic. The simple appearance as a foreigner leaves us extremely susceptible to travel agents (especially in Morocco) and an onslaught of staring (as in Tunisia) and begging (especially in Morocco), but more than anything there seems to be the perception that its okay to rip-off foreigners, so every money transaction always involves a negotiation.

Overall though it just takes some getting used to, especially since due to the language barrier there are aspects to the culture we will never fully understand.

2) Spring Break

DAY 1 DAY 2 DAY 3 DAY 4 DAY 5 DAY 6 DAY 7 DAY 8 DAY 9

Casablanca, Morocco Jendouba, Tunisia Le Kef, Tunisia Douz, Tunisia Matmata-El Jem, Tunisia Kairouan, Tunisia Tunis, Tunisia Carthage-Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia Bardo Museum, Tunis, Tunisia

DAY 10

Tunis, Tunisia

DAY 11

La Marsa, Tunis, Tunisia Casablanca-Ifrane, Morocco

DAY 12

Legend Blue = Air Red line = Bus Green = Louage/Taxi Orange = Train Pink = Light Rail

Where do we start? Tunisia was certainly an adventure for us. The best part about the trip was seeing the amazing Roman ruins scattered throughout the Tunisian landscape. We essentially did a circular tour of the country – and took pretty much every means of mass transportation available to us (bus, train, taxi, louage, etc.). Before embarking on our Tunisian adventures, we came armed with a little historical background of the country, a printed fast fact sheet/map of Tunisia, and Al Akhwayn University library’s 1998 version of the “Rough Guide to Tunisia.” Surprisingly, the 10-year old book proved to be quite useful on our whirlwind tour of Tunisia. But as we found later on, reading is definitely different than experiencing! We left the university on Friday, February 27th with 3 fellow Moroccan students and a fellow exchange student for Casablanca. Arriving in Casablanca in the early evening, we got a room at the Hotel Ibis near the train station that would take us to the airport. We decided this would be our evening of “luxury” to start the trip off right. After securing our room we walked to Rick’s Café near the Medina of Casablanca. To refresh your memory of the movie Casablanca (1942), Rick’s Café was Humphrey Bogart’s nightclub in the movie! While the movie was never actually filmed on Moroccan soil, tourists like yours truly certainly eat up the ambience of the restaurant and setting. With great success, we found the café without any real problems and found that we were a half hour early for the restaurant to open. Luckily, we were within a short walking distance to Casablanca’s great draw – The Hassan II Mosque which was built in 1993. I am not sure anything could have quite prepared us for this extravagant mosque. Built overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, the view of both the mosque and to the west was breathtaking. We arrived just as the sun was setting and the call to evening prayer was beginning. We took some fabulous photos, people watched, and walked down near the ocean listening to the waves crash against the shore. All hunger pains had subsided at this point – it was a very peaceful setting. We then walked back to Rick’s Café Alicia in front of Hassan II Mosque

At Ricks Cafe

anticipating a great meal and we weren’t disappointed. Alicia got a colorful salad and Grant got a T-bone steak (who is surprised here at our meal choices??). We also ordered a bottle of wine that we slowly savored. Halfway through the meal, we learned that we would have live piano music at 9pm (his name wasn’t Sam, as in the movie!). So Alicia got a coffee and we both got dessert – Grant a brownie, Alicia an apple tartlet. In the meantime, we were receiving several text messages from fellow international students who

were headed to Casablanca en route to Hungary, Mallorca, and Italy the following day. They decided to join us at Rick’s Café so we migrated to their table and settled in for a little longer. All in all, we spent a good 4 hours there enjoying the ambiance, the waiters with their fez hats and essentially feeling like we had been transported to the Hollywood Casablanca rather than the real streets of Casablanca. The girl who was traveling to Italy around the same time as Grant and I ended up catching a cab with us back to the Hotel Ibis – we unsuccessfully tried to sneak her into our room so she wouldn’t have to pay – they wouldn’t have it! Instead, she had to pay for a room by herself for only about 4 hours of sleep. C’est la vie. We caught the earliest train that morning – 5:30am and headed a ½ hour outside the city to the airport. Without delay, we were on Royal Air Morocco heading a couple countries west to “liberal Tunisia.” Or so we’d read…. Our first view of Tunisia was that of its capitol, Tunis. With the Mediterranean off in the distance, white-walled urban development of the city, and clear organization of the city’s streets we had a very favorable first impression of Tunisia. Debarking from the plane, the weather was warm and we headed off to clear customs. Nothing too significant here except trying to fill out forms that are written solely in French and Arabic, and needing to provide the customs officials with a Tunisian address of our destination – which we didn’t have. To appease them, Alicia pulled out the Rough Guide to Tunisia, flipped to the hostels in Tunis section, and provided them with an address. I guess governments are fairly similar in that aspect. We got Grant’s checked bag and tested Alicia’s first experience in negotiating (let alone speaking) in French – trying to get a rental car. Discovering it was simply too expensive, we abandoned that idea for the grander adventure of taxis, buses, louages (long distance mini-vans that leave once filled), trains, and most importantly, our own two feet (what a concept!). We left the airport in search of a taxi to get to the bus station. This cab ride will go down in the history of cab rides for the most expensive one in Tunisia for the shortest distance. No, actually we are certain they rip every tourist off that doesn’t know any better….I mean, they have to earn their bread somehow, no? Sadly, this was our first taste of Tunisia but at the time, we didn’t even know it because we had not figured out the Tunisian currency in the least. The Tunisian currency is the Dinar and it is broken down to a hundredth of a decimal. Talk about slightly confusing – so when we thought our cab ride was 18 Dinars – and paid the driver 20 Dinars (in which case he would not return that extra 2 Dinars claiming there was a “baggage fee”) in the end our metered cab ride was really 1.8 Dinars! You do the math. At the bus station we purchased tickets for a ride to Jendouba that would leave in another hour or so, so we decided to go in search for food. We found a little café down the way and ordered a sandwich fromage for Alicia (cheese sandwich) and 2 sandwiches for Grant. Next door to the café was a little produce stand and we bought 2 bananas and a grapefruit that Alicia carried around the whole next week – but the grapefruit was excellent when we juiced it! The bus was rather crowded and long. We had a couple people try to talk with us – mostly trying to figure out where we were from, that sort of thing. We got to Jendouba and were dropped off at the bus station a stone’s throw away from a hotel that was listed in our guidebook. With a little bit of communication difficulty, we managed to get a room for the night. Tunisians speak French certainly, but not so much English. Grant and Alicia speak English certainly, but amongst us, only have certain degrees of proficiency in German, Spanish, and French. And so the language divide begins. We left the hotel in search of food and happened upon a pizzeria that was not only our favorite pizza in Tunisia, but also happened to be the best service we got in Tunisia as well. The staff was so accommodating and a lot of fun and while neither of us spoke the other’s language, we tried. Also, of note, the waiter turned the

television to “24” of all shows, and affirmed that not only do they like 24 but that it could only be played in English. Jack Bauer had never sounded so familiar and good English-starved ears! We left early the next morning for the Roman site Bulla Regia which was about 15 KM to the north. In the end, it was the only tourist site that we paid for while in Tunisia because since we are international students, we were able to get into all the sites without charge! Bulla Regia was a much larger Roman ruin site than we had expected. It was built in one of the most fertile valleys in Tunisia and Theater at Bulla Regia prospered, once, from grain production. What makes this site remarkable though is that the Roman inhabitants, due to the heat in the summer, were driven underground. The villa, grain production and storage were all underground. The exception was a theater, chapel, and bathing complex that all stood above ground. What makes this even more remarkable, as we will later see, is that this idea of subterranean life also appears and may have been inspired by the Berbers in the south, specifically Matmata. After spending nearly four hours at Bulla Regia, we flagged a cab back to Jendouba and boarded Alicia walking over an underground settlement at Bulla Regia. a buss to Le Kef, where we planned to take a bus to Douz. Arriving in Le Kef, our critical mistake was to get off the bus somewhere other than the bus station. Wandering around the city for some time we eventually found our way to the busstation, thanks in great part to Alicia’s attentiveness. We soon discovered though, that the next bus wouldn’t be leaving until the next morning. Our plan had originally been to explore the north some more to see some of the other Roman ruins in the area, but we had come to the conclusion that we wanted to prioritize the sites in an effort to either have a longer, more relaxing, break at the end or explore the possibility of going to Sicily before our return to Morocco. Hence our next stop was to be Douz in the Sahara. For now though we had the opportunity to explore Le Kef. We first tried to find the local hostel with no success; a group of girls tried to help us but in the end only wanted money, kind of entertaining. At one point they wanted our phone number, told us we were their friends, then asked for money so they could buy chocolate. They were giggling the whole time. Woman herding sheep in the hills above Le Kef We then met a guy whose ex-wife was from Texas, and generously showed us to a hotel that was

reasonably priced. After trying to find food with no great success, we went up to the Kasba that presided over the city and then over to a hill/mountain that offered a nice vantage point over the city and the region. Heading back into town Grant spotted a nice-looking sandwich shop that also had some desserts. We ate the sandwiches indoors and took our chocolate desserts outdoors and attempted to have an enjoyable time eating them while watching the sunset. Instead, a guy who spoke German started talking to Alicia, asking for money. We gave him a bite of dessert but that wasn’t enough, he needed money. In German, he tried to use the logic that he didn’t have family in Tunisia to support him for him to buy bread and such, in which case Alicia countered with the logic that we didn’t have family in Tunisia either and we were poor students to boot! He eventually wandered away, and we headed back to our hotel. We ended up going out that night for a glass of wine, and met 6 Tunisians who were very friendly with us. With the use of German, Spanish, French, and English we had a limited conversation about us being students in Morocco, on spring break in Tunisia, that we were married, and what Grant and I studied in school. It was mostly the German and French that helped here – very interesting. Waking up at 0400, we left to catch the bus to Gafsa, on our way to Douz. Leaving at 0530 we were able to look out as the lush hills and valleys in which Roman ruins such as Bulla Regia were strategically placed turned to more baron and dusty terrain, and making our closest mark to the Algerian boarder (about 20KM). Stopping in the dusty city of Gafsa, we soon caught a louage to Douz. After about an hour and a half of driving across the desert plains of what used to be a lake, we arrived in Kebill, where we had to switch louages to go to Douz. After a painless transfer, we were on our way and about 15minutes in we could start to see the wavy sand dunes on the horizon. About 15 minutes later, we arrived in Douz and learned a lesson about Louages: that if you connect with another louage you have to pay for the second as well. After some body gestures we resolved the problem with the louage driver, and sought out the hotel “20 Mar” that was highly recommended in our travel book. Finding the hotel with no problem we found extremely affordable and nice rooms, though not as lively of a place as the travel book made it sound. Stowing our bags and grabbing the Camel herder in the Sahara water and camera we then made our way out to the dunes, on foot. After stopping for useless directions in the travel agency, we found our way by following the steady stream of Land Rovers taking tourists out to the Dunes and picking them up from their camel rides. After walking through an oasis at the edge of town we stepped out into what was clearly the Sahara. We passed houses with camels outside, and a large flat area where hundreds of camels roamed just waiting for the next set of tourists to take them out Alicia sporting it in the Sahara

into the dunes that overshadowed their current resting spot. Walking maybe 3 or 4 miles in the Sahara we were soon heat exhausted and out of water. Having seen plenty of dunes, camels, and tourists we called it quits and headed back into town. On our way back we stopped at a sandwich shop where Grant ordered a chwarma that came with a mixture of vegetables that made it spectacular, and Alicia ordered a freshly squeezed orange juice. Going back to the hotel we showered, relaxed, and then headed out to explore the city and eat dinner. After some searching through a city that was surprisingly creepy at night, with everyone driving mopeds down dark streets and little street lights to speak of, we ended up going back to the same sandwich shop for a bit less spectacular of a meal. Before we leave Douz behind there are three things of importance to note here: 1) This far south a large number of the population is black due to displacement as a result of early generations of slavery; 2) The typical Jilaba that is worn by Berbers and Bedouin, as well as the turban is more common due to the desolate and hot location; 3) The minarets of mosques change the further south you go, whereas in the north the minarets are blocked off in sections, minarets in the south tend to be more circular and triangular in the roof construction. The next day we headed to the bus station which we found to be unreliable if you tried to get early transportation somewhere, in our case, Gabes. After trying to figure out which would be better, louage or bus, we opted for the louage and were in Gabes by noon. Gabes was another city that shouldn’t be included on your travel itinerary except to take advantage of its placement as the hub for transportation from the north to the south, which is exactly what we did and decided to go south to Matmata. Taking a bus the ride was a little less than an hour. The plains of the desert that we were used to gave way to dry dusty mountains and soon to Looking down into Matmata, notice the pits at the base hills on the right. sporadic Berber settlements (caves built into the sides of hills of mountains). Then up a windy mountain pass of a road, we made it to Matmata. Though there are some modern developments in the city it was still easy to see how this settlement once looked. Hiking up onto a hill we could see on our left an extensively terraced mountain side and on the right (looking into the city) a rather brown town with sporadic mounds of displaced dirt. Yes, if you have guessed it from reading earlier, these are the pits that the Berber traditionally live in to stay out of the sun, and no they don’t live in the pits themselves, but rather in a series of caves that they have built into the side of the pit. Walking down into the town, we found that navigation was Traditional Matmata pit dwelling by more of a series of trails than roads.

Precariously walking around the edges of some of these pits that seemed to just appear out of nowhere, we came across a lady who invited us in to take a look around her pit dwelling. Which once we entered the caves used for sleeping and eating, the concept made complete sense as the temperature dropped from the hot outside air to a near perfect room temperature. The room was not spacious to say the least, but the shelter it provided from the elements was amazing. After looking around we gave the lady 5 Dinar and explored the village even further and definitely off the beaten path. We wandered through some Farmland in Matmata small crop fields and finally made our way back to the center of town, where along the way we ran into a kid asking for money and gave him some bread instead. We wanted to see where the usual tourists were going and traced them to the Troglodyte hotel; oh did we mention Star Wars was filmed here? Yes, this same hotel was built around the Hollywood set of the bar scene where Luke Skywalker and Hans Solo met on planet Tatatouine, named after a city just a little further south of Matmata. We had lunch in this corny, bar setting. The food wasn’t great but it was something to write home about! We then headed back to the bus station and returned to Gabes. As in Douz, the bus schedule wasn’t exactly convenient and we ended up grabbing two Louages to Gabes.

Star Wars set

Roman Amphitheatre/Coliseum in El Jem

From Gabes our next stop was El Jem to the north. Wanting to save money by taking overnight transport we caught a 4-hour bus from Gabes to El Jem at 10:00pm to see El Jem’s spectacular Roman amphitheatre. We arrived in El Jem at 2am to dark streets and without a place to stay – we definitely lost a lot of sleep that night. We tried going to the one of the hotels listed in the guidebook where the bus dropped us off– but the man who opened the hotels’ doors

said they no longer were a hotel, or at least they no longer were renting rooms for that night – we weren’t sure. So, we ended up spending the night in the train station – trying to read our books, somewhat sleeping, trying to stay warm, and otherwise just clock watching for 8:00am – when the amphitheatre opened. By 6:00am we were bored enough that we decided to walk around El Jem, watch the sun rise, and walk around the amphitheatre outside its gates. We ended up going to two different coffee shops for some coffee and hot chocolate (side note: “coffee shops” are mainly a male-dominated space/in-public social activity), and still were just waiting to get inside the gates to see El Jem. At around 7:45am, the employees must have felt sorry for us getting there so early or something, as they allowed us to enter the site a little early. The unique thing about this site was that it was where we first figured out that all historical sites in Tunisia were free for students as long as we showed our international student identification card! In the end, we saved quite a few dinars for being students which was great. We cruised through El Jem in record time, under an hour. We went through the courtyard and throughout the different levels of the stadium – luckily we had gotten Grant at the amphitheatre/coliseum there just a little before the many tourist buses that arrived shortly after us. We had practically no sleep from the night before so we did a very brief tour of the site before heading in a louage to the next stop: Sousse. We realized we spent more time waiting for El Jem to open for the day than we actually spent touring the site, but we were tired and felt like we had seen more than enough of the Roman ruins for one day! However, we got some great photos of the amphitheatre and were trying to picture what it would have been like to witness such a spectacle in its glory days. Alicia, for one, preferred going there without the fighting, maiming, and bloodshed of animal and human alike! Grant, on the other hand, was enjoying the thought of defending himself before such a large crowd in an enormous arena! It was a great site to see – despite being tired and ready for a good nap (which was to be had the moment we set foot in our hotel room in Kairouan).

The inside of the Amphitheatre/Coliseum in El Jem

To get from El Jem to Kairouan, you have to go some 40KM to Sousse by Louage and then another 30KM to Kairouan with another Louage. Though this may be a more indirect route and there may be alternate ways of getting to Kairouan, a definite plus is that Sousse is a nice city on the coast and the Sousse Louage station was very robust. This leg of the trip we did not bother staying long, and about 40 minutes later we were in Kairouan. The purpose of going to Kairouan had been to see the Great Mosque of Kairouan, the old Islamic built cisterns, and the

Museum of Islamic Art and Architecture. However, arriving there we were still exhausted from a night of no sleep in El Jem and preceded to find a hotel for the night and nap some of the day away. Several hours later than when we had planned to wake up, we were off again to The cisterns at Kairouan explore what we could before nightfall, which ended up being the cisterns and the Mosque from the outside at night. Conveniently, our hotel was situated across the street from the cisterns that were now included in what looked like a park. The complex was comprised of two cisterns, originally thought to be built by the Romans but later discovered to be Islamic, one consisted of two pools and the other three. By allowing the dirty water to enter and settle in the bigger pool, while only allowing the water line crest into the next pool they were able to filter the water, making it ‘drinkable.’ Given the hot, dry, and dusty location of the city this once proved to be invaluable. After checking out the cisterns, the sun was setting and we decided to try and make our way the Kairouan Mosque. Arriving just after dark we were treated to the illuminated minaret towering over the walls of the medina, with a martyr cemetery at the foot of the wall. Unfortunately by this point the mosque was closed for visiting so instead we stumbled upon a The minaret overlooking the medina wall and pizza shop called “Miami” whose employee cemetery. apparently lived in Florida at one point. After a rather decent meal we went back to the hotel to rest and prepare for the next day of seeing the Kairouan mosque and the Museum of Islamic Art and Architecture. Little did you know that that night the halls of the hotel would be filled with the sound of women cheering with the conclusion of wedding that had just taken place downstairs. Alicia stayed up watching German television for about 2 hours, and then also went to sleep. The next morning, Grant was ecstatic to finally see the Great Mosque, arguably the oldest Islamic praying site in North Africa, and the fourth holiest site in Islam, after Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem. However, after passing through the mosque’s rather robust walls, resembling more of a fortress than a site of worship, we were disheartened to see that due to the President’s visit that would take place in just a few days, they had erected a huge tent in the middle of the Sahn (the inner courtyard of a mosque) that completely ruined the atmosphere, let alone some unique qualities about the mosque that were kept in the courtyard. After some looking around we snuck into the tent and

The Prayer Hall inside the Kairouan Mosque

were able to take a look at some of the courtyards’ items including a sundial that was once used to tell when prayer time was, and a fountain centered in the middle of the courtyard that doubled in the function of collecting and storing water for the city as the floors were sloped in order to drain into the fountain. It should also be said that the reason for the President’s visit was to conduct a speech on the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad (10 February 2009). Keep in mind that this will also be different next year as it is based on the Islamic lunar calendar. Nevertheless, the tent did not spoil our view of the magnificently decorated prayer hall with neatly stacked Qurans along the rows, and rich mosaics along the Qibla wall (direction of Mecca) and especially around the Mihrab (the niche, usually centered on the Qibla wall, where God sits, similar to an apse in a church). Having taken in the Mosque to the fullest extent, we set off to find transportation to the Museum of Islamic Art and Architecture, some 15KM outside of town. Getting somewhat lost we ended up taking a taxi to the Louage station for transport further on. That taxi experience was and has been our only experience thus far in witnessing a traditional Muslim funeral. Coming up to our turn, we found ourselves “cut off” by a procession of men, maybe 50-100 in total, carrying a wooden coffin down the street. The atmosphere was extremely solemn, but none of the procession was emotional as they took turns carrying the coffin to the cemetery. This is important in two main aspects: 1) Women are not allowed at Islamic funeral burials; 2) Funerals/burials are about honoring the deceased life and praying for his/her afterlife, and not mourning the loss as there are other places to do this. Making it to the Louage station, we secured a ride in no time and thanks to some understanding on the driver’s part, he took us straight to the Museum. The Museum of Islamic Art and Architecture was a great comprehensive museum of Islamic items, to include pottery and glasswork from the 8th century, coins from every Islamic Dynasty, and gold leafed pages from Qurans written some twelve-hundred years ago. It was all fascinating and unfortunately Grant doomed the photo shoot by using the flash on an item he shouldn’t have. The guard kept us from taking photos from that point forward. With time running out and the objective of reaching the capitol city of Tunis Grant's last picture in the Museum. by nightfall, we were off again. Walking back to Kairouan, we caught a ride on a Louage to a separate station and then attempted to find the other one (for longer distances), but really only managed to run into some kids who after turning down their request for money preceded in throwing pebbles at us. Finally making our way to the main Louage station, we had no trouble in finding a ride back to Sousse where we then planned on taking a train to Tunis. Arriving in Sousse we soon found ourselves reintroduced into the tourist atmosphere of coastal warm weather and scandalous European clothing (clearly “foreigners”). Given the country and how culturally insensitive the country appeared to us thus far, this was especially appalling for Alicia who thought it as being somewhat disgraceful attire. We got enough stares and we were fully covered; imagine wearing short shorts and a spaghetti-strapped tank top! As we were to also find, many of these beach towns are monopolized for most of the year when the

weather is nice by Europeans fleeing the north in search of a warmer climate. Let this not deter you from Sousse though, as it really is a nice city on the beach. Complete with a Rabat (old fortress) overlooking the beachhead and cutesy tourist shops along the main strip, nevertheless, a prolonged stay here was not on our agenda. Soon we were on a 3- hour train ride to Tunis, where arriving upon our arrival that evening, we were greeted by stormy weather and congested sidewalks. Finding a two star hotel for the night (maybe a one star by western standard) we dropped our stuff and set out to have a night of splurging at a nice restaurant. We found what looked to be a nice Italian restaurant and our first red flag should have been when they served some god awful Tunisian wine that tasted more like straight Vodka than anything. Thinking it may have just been the wine we remained optimistic about Alicia’s salad and Grant’s seafood pasta. While the salad turned out fine, though overpriced, Grant’s seafood pasta turned out to be more of a Cajun dish that his delicate stomach could barely handle. Leaving the restaurant rather disappointed, we stumbled upon an ice cream shop that was the shiznit, boosting our morale quite a bit (strawberry sorbet with whole chunks of strawberries in it!). We won’t bore you too much with our food exploits except to say that alcohol in Tunisia is something that is really kept underground and it took quite a bit of work to track down places that served the Tunisian beer called Celtia that is a bit like Budweiser in its quality so nothing special but not bad. Anyhow, the next morning we set out to explore the legendary site of Carthage. Conveniently enough, a light rail will take you to the city for a dirt cheap price. Something of a shock to the both of us was how little of the ancient city was preserved. Where once an epic battle occurred, here stood the residences of Tunisia's rich and famous. For this reason, we narrowed our visit to two main locations, the Cathedral on top of Byrsa Hill, and the Antoninus Baths. Presiding over the city, the Cathedral on top of Byrsa hill was once the epicenter of the city with prevailing views over virtually the entire coast. Now The View from Byrsa Hill.

a museum adjacent to the cathedral houses many artifacts of the ancient city to include mosaics, statues, and some dead guy’s bones in a stone sarcophagus. Byrsa hill, itself has been encroached on by plenty of residential developments, but still has many standing ruins of the ancient city left for people to wonder through. Our next stop The Antoninus Baths was the Antoninus Baths, at the end of a gorgeously landscaped preserve full of ancient ruins. Since we don’t know much about Roman Baths and these are supposedly the most important ruins of Carthage, we will let http://www.planetware.com do the talking: The massive remains of the Baths of Antoninus Pius, which were the largest in the Roman world outside Rome, occupy an area of 1.8 hectares/4.5 acres. Built between A.D. 146 and 162, in the reign of the Emperor Antoninus Pius, they were extensively restored in 389 but subsequently

collapsed, presumably as a result of a structural defect, and thereafter were used for centuries as a quarry of building stone. As a result all that remains is the walls of the basement story, which owing to the nearness of the baths to the coast had particularly deep foundations, and a stretch of masonry on the west side extending up both stories. On the ground floor - and not, as was the normal arrangement, in the basement - were the heating and water supply systems, together with rest rooms and rooms for the staff of the baths. The baths proper were on the upper floors, with a grand staircase (of which nothing remains) leading down from them to the sea.

Having planetware.com’s description, yes it was awe-inspiring especially given the fact that we were practically the only ones there due to the sporadic bad weather. For anyone doing this trip in the future, it might also be well worth it to go a few kilometers south to see the Military Harbor which we didn’t really see. Moving on from Carthage we set out on foot to Sidi Bou Said further up the coast, to see the picturesque scenery of Tunisia’s most wealthy community on the Mediterranean. About halfway there we ran into a few people telling us to walk on the other side of the street, only to find out that we were approaching the President’s Palace and apparently we can’t even walk on the same side of the street as the Palace complex. There is a symbolic comparison here to be made. Where in the United States the White House is a symbol of democracy and freedom that is purposely placed in a spot of open visibility, the Tunisian Palace was tucked away and secluded behind nearly a kilometer of guards, hills, and trees. Here freedom of expression, speech, and press is only free when compared with neighboring countries. Anyhow, reaching Sidi Bou Said we discovered one of the cleanest cities we’ve been to in North Africa, but when it came to asking for directions everyone was so uptight (especially the police) that staying there was not only going to be ridiculously expensive but Sidi Bou Said, in the far off backdrop to the right is Carthage also frustrating. After eating at, yeah you guessed it, another pizza shop we caught the light rail back to Tunis and took up refuge at the Hotel Medina in the medina, which was reasonably priced about half the price of the place we stayed at the night before. We reserved a room for two nights – the longest we stayed in one place our entire 12 days. At 0630 the next day we were startled awake by the morning call to prayer which lasted for a painstakingly long thirty minutes. Finally able to go back to sleep, we woke a few hours later and looked out the window and discovered that no more than 50 feet away was the Minaret of the Mosque that sounded the call to prayer with all four of its loud speakers. Learning a valuable lesson about mosque locations relative to your chosen hotel, we set off to explore the Medina and track down the famous Bardo Museum that houses virtually all of the Roman art and architectural pieces from all the ruins in Tunisia. Making our way through the narrow windy streets of the medina that sometimes seemed to dip down into tunnels under buildings we emerged on the other side and set off to find the Museum. After some walking we ended up flagging down a taxi that took us another half mile or so in the same direction. Before entering the museum, we wanted to grab a bite to eat. Ironically this meal was to be the site of both our

cheapest est and best meals in Tunisia. We came across an unassuming sandwich shop that was pumping out freshly baked bread and together had a couple ouple sandwiches for maybe 3USD. We then crossed the street and entered the Bardo Museum that was almost too much to take in once we were inside. Every room was packed with Roman mosaics and sculpture from all over the country. Depictions of gods, seasons seasons,, and animals lined every wall and space in the walkways. Since it would be overly exhaustive to describe everything in this vast building we will refer you to: http://bardomuseum.com/home.html for any further information. After nearly a half day spent in the Museum we set out again for the Medina to explore the area a little more thoroughly. Ironically, we kept running into a group of German tourists that were at the Bardo Museum, and yes, Alicia felt at home trying too listen in and use her German as she had been tagging along with the group in the museum itself! Meandering through the medina we saw an old Madrasa (Religious School) and then emerged back into the main city where we grabbed a bite to eat and then went back to the hotel to sleep. For Zeus at the Bardo Museum our planned last night, we decided to move to Northern Tunis (closerr to the airport) and stay at an old colonial hotel near the Bab El Khadrah which is a restored double entranced wall that used to be the main entrance into the main medina of Tunis. The area around the Bab El Khadrah is a neat area worth exploring. Nearby was the Belvedere Park, complete with a zoo and a rather extensive area of a park. Within the Bab El Khadrah that weekend was a massive fair where it seemed everybody was out to shop in the souk (open market). A flood of people were in the streets buying nuts, fruits, fish (of all sorts), and virtually every part of an animal you can imagine. Diving further into this Medina we found the Halfaouine Mosque with its rather unique and retro look, built up onto a second story with merchants and venders selling things items out of the sides on the ground floor. Trying to enter the Mosque we were stopped by a man who didn’t really explain why. So we continued walking further into the Medina and about 15 minutes later as we were trying to make our way The Bab El Khadrah gates.

The Halfaouine Mosque.

through the mass of people when we heard the call to prayer. We realized at that point that the reason for us being prohibited from entering into the mosque was because of the close proximity to prayer time, something else rather remarkable happened. Perhaps because it was close to Prophet’s Birthday, but EVERYONE in the souk stopped what they were doing at the drop of a dime and proceeded to head towards the mosque to pray. Within minutes, the streets that were once packed were now deserted and more than half the shops were closed. This was also the Medina where we were stopped by a truck filled with propane tanks, as the driver attempted to pass a parked car in a narrow, Medina. After some frustration on the part of the driver, several Tunisian men attempted to move this unfortunately, parked car (what??). When this didn’t work, the truck driver simply side-swiped the poor car and drove along his merry way. It would have been nice to figure out how this was a culturally accepted practice. Anyhow, after a little more exploring we headed back to the hotel, ate (tried unsuccessfully to go to a Chinese restaurant), and called it a night as we had to catch our flight in the morning. Our flight was scheduled for the morning of 9 March 2009. We arrived at the airport about 3 hours early and decided we would try to make sure our flight was still in order by going to the Royal Air Morocco kiosk. Luckily we did! We went to their office and the lady told us quite bluntly that our flight had been cancelled for that day, and hadn’t we received an email to that effect? We responded that clearly we hadn’t, as we were at the airport on the originally scheduled date. We wouldn’t exactly say she took pity on us, but rather she realized we were students in Morocco, we needed to get back to our university, and clearly we had not heard of the flight’s cancellation before that day. She left the kiosk for a brief stint and arrived back breathless and informed us that not only did she secure a flight for us on the next day’s plane, but as compensation, she put us up in a hotel (turns out: it was the nicest hotel we stayed at while in Tunisia) and provided us with a voucher for free lunch, dinner, and breakfast the next morning. Score! We weren’t thrilled with an extra day in Tunisia – but we were nevertheless happy about the arrangements Royal Air Morocco made for us. In the end, the lady did apologize which made us both feel better. We left the airport in search of yet again another taxi. We managed to get a taxi that tried to charge us 15 dinars for the ride – what should have been less than 5 dinars. We literally did a circle around the airport and made the taxi driver take us back….we were wiser to their dishonest tricks. Slightly miffed, we approached a second driver who we negotiated down to a better price and managed to get to our “luxurious” hotel in tact. We arrived and knew we were in high class when a butler saw us to our rooms and it was all business people at this hotel. Immediately we inquired at the hotel how to walk to the light rail station that would take us out to La Marsa. While we had been provided a nice hotel, we were ready to hit the beach! We walked to the train station no problem and headed east. The Mediterranean Sea was absolutely spectacular! We took some great photos, found a few seashells to take home, and had a small picnic on the beach. The only unfortunate experience is that it was slightly too windy that day – so eating bread and cheese with sand in it wasn’t the most appetizing. One exciting thing for Alicia was that we found dried apricots that were so very yummy! Apricots are supposed to be the great fruit specialty of Tunisia – but alas, these

tasty apricots had come from Turkey. C’est la vie! After a walk down much of the beach, we returned by train back to Tunis and walked back to our hotel room. We ate our free dinner at the restaurant that night; it was buffet-style and had quite a selection for both of us! We tried to stop by the bar to get one last Celtia beer before we left in the morning, but we decided that it was too smoky and too expensive in the bar and we just didn’t feel like being there. So we went back to the room and watched CNN in English. While maybe not our station of choice back home, it was the only channel in English and it was simply nice to hear news from home. We can remember that CNN reported on Obama removing barriers to stem cell research, news of Barbie’s 50th Birthday, and a report about a lady who was raped in Saudi Arabia and yet the Saudi woman was the one being charged for it….oh CNN we missed your sensational news reporting! Grant took a bath that night – the first and maybe the last bath until our Alicia enjoying the extra day at La Marsa return to the US – and we slept in anticipation for our return to Morocco. The next morning we went to the free breakfast, milled around a bit, and caught a taxi back to the airport. As luck would have it, we had no problems and were checked in for our flight a good two hours beforehand. We killed time by drinking coffee (Alicia) and beer (Grant). We tried to burn through some Tunisian dinars at the duty-free stores, but they only accepted Euros or credit cards. Grant tried to buy his much-prized Rocher chocolates, but you needed a minimum charge of $10 to use a credit card, so we gave up and just waited for our flight out of Tunisia. In summary, we would call our trip to Tunisia worthwhile as far as the sites and experience went; however, as far as the cultural insensitivities, the language barriers, the pre-formed notion that it was going to be the “most liberal” Maghreb nation (thanks for nothing guidebook), and not comprehending when a tourist comes to Tunisia and is making a genuine effort to see the country, and not simply play tourist….for those reasons, it did put somewhat of a damper on our Tunisian travels, hence our anticipation for Morocco. We arrived back in Morocco on time and with a little more cynicism than when we had left. We got through customs much easier than our first time in Morocco (mostly attributed to being accustomed to it, and nothing more) and booked a train from Casablanca to Meknes. We met a guy who had just arrived in Morocco and seemed pretty frustrated thus far with the country. Mind you, he had only been in Casablanca about 2 ½ hours. We let him look at our Lonely Planet book for a hotel in Casablanca and we tried to reassure him about Morocco, telling him that rest assured, it was much more tourist-friendly than Tunisia! In the end, we think he

was just sleep-deprived and we left him with an address for a hotel in Casablanca. The train ride to Meknes was fairly predictable. We did have a Moroccan guy try to sell us on a desert trek in southern Morocco – he just randomly came into our car and tried to sell us on this tourist plot of his. After our sojourn in Tunisia, he couldn’t have picked a worse time to try to sell tourists on anything! We were no fools…we can thank Tunisia for that. ☺ We arrived in Meknes, and by chance, we met up with a Moroccan friend who was heading back to the university with 3 Moroccan girls. Since taxi cabs can fit 6 people, plus the driver, we had the perfect number to take us back to Ifrane. We arrived “home” at around 8:45pm after a long day/week of traveling. We ate a fairly quiet meal in the restaurant, hopped on our computers for a few minutes to email people we were back, and fell into a much-needed sleep. It was back to university life, campus food, and midterms that would be taking place the following week.