North Africa ‘Plus’ Travel Diary

2011

 

An early start this morning at 6:15 am was necessary so we could return the rental car and check in for our flight to Tunis at Istanbul Airport.  6:15 am might not sound too bad, but on Tunisian time (where we finished the day), this meant a 4:15 am start.  Yes, it has been a long day, but a good one.

Our flight from Istanbul to Tunis on a Turkish Airlines Airbus A330 was smooth and comfortable, with wonderful views of Greece and Italy as we flew overhead.  We landed in Tunis at 11:10 am, about 10 minutes early.  This was fortunate, because our time in Tunisia was to be quite short, and I had organised our schedule right down to the nearest quarter hour.  My schedule had us leaving the airport by 12:30 pm.

Right from the start, this schedule looked dubious.  As Australian passport holders, we needed to obtain visas on arrival, and we found the desk easily.  However, payment had to be made in Tunisian dirhams, of which we had none.  The solution?  We were asked to leave our passports at the visa desk, walk through the immigration counters and security checks to the bank on the other side, change money, and then return through the immigration desks and security checks in the wrong direction.

Surprisingly, getting out through the immigration and security to the bank was relatively easy, and required just some words of explanation.  Less surprisingly, getting back in again the wrong way was not so easy, but we immediately made our way back to the visa desk, collected our passports, and passed through immigration and security in the “normal” way.

We collected our luggage in the melée of the luggage carousel, and proceeded to the car rental desk.  It was midday by this time, so I thought our chances of getting away by the scheduled 12:30 pm were looking pretty good.  However, the paperwork required was immense, and to cut a long story short, we drove out of the airport’s car park at 12:27 pm.

It was immediately apparent that Tunisia was a poorer country than Turkey, as shown by its poorer quality roads, the older cars and less well maintained buildings.  However, with fairly clear signage in Arabic and French, we found our way quite easily onto one of the main roads west of Tunis towards Beja.  Our destination was Dougga, a magnificent hilltop city of Roman ruins, which we reached right on (my) schedule at 2:15 pm.

The decline in tourism in Tunisia following the upheavals earlier this year was starkly obvious at Dougga - during our entire time there, we were the only visitors. This resulted in a superb experience for us, but I had to feel very sorry for the local people whose incomes are dependent on tourism - they must be suffering terribly.

Overlooking the deep green and brown landscape of the Kalled Valley and the Teboursouk Mountains, Dougga is a 2000 year old city that was classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1997.  Incredibly, some people were still living in the ruins until the 1950s.

Several highlights of Dougga stand out in my mind.  First was the 19-tier 3500 seat amphitheatre that was situated very close to the entrance gate.  Built in 188 AD, it was in a quite remarkable state of preservation despite its antiquity, and it was easy to understand why it would still be a popular venue for productions during its annual festival in July to August.  It was quite eerie to stand on the stage and hear the resonate sound of one’s own voice bounce back clearly and audibly from the audience area in front.

Dougga is dominated by a temple known as the Capitole, a 10 metre high structure fronted with 8 metre high fluted columns, originally dedicated to the god Jupiter.  The Capitole can be seen from almost every part of the city, and it is remarkable that such a large building has survived largely intact for so many years.

Indeed, Dougga as a whole is fairly well preserved, presumably due to its semi-arid climate.  The pattern of streets and many of the walls of houses can still be clearly seen, and it was easy to imagine the glory of this city in its heyday.

Right on schedule, at a little before 4:00 pm, we left Dougga and headed to our destination for the evening, the holy city of Kairouen.  With a little help, we reached our hotel at 6:30 pm - right on schedule once again ☺.  The drive seemed strangely familiar to anyone from Australia, with flat land, grazing sheep and even thousands of imported eucalypt trees.

Dinner at the hotel once again revealed the dearth of tourists in Tunisia at the moment, as we were the only diners in the hotel’s huge dining room.  It will be interesting to see how many other foreigners we encounter as we explore this wonderful city tomorrow.

Day 8 - Istanbul, Turkey to Kairouan, Tunisia

Monday

20 June 2011

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