Saturday April 20, 2002: Departure
At 17:00 Linda comes to pick us up to bring us to the airport, well actually Timo is driving there. After a quick e-mail and SMS we can leave. Very nice. We will do nothing for a week and have fun in the sun. We arrive without trouble in Zaventem and the airport was very calm, unbelievably calm. Timo makes sure Eef repairs her watch
and we drink three beers before takeoff. We have too much time now, because we did not loose a second when we had to hand over our luggage; that calm it is here. After three pints people were running past us in panic, because it already was last call. We drink our beer and then go to the gate calmly; NOBODY rushes us when we’re on vacation. So we get on the plane, 10 minutes earlier than planned. There was GPS on board, so we were able to follow the route. After diner we wanted to sleep a bit, but then they came to disturb us, because we had to fill out a card for customs. The landing was OK, we did not have to wait a long time to get our luggage; everything is going smoothly. In the meantime it’s already 21:20 local time (Belgium –1). We get on the bus and they bring us all to the same hotel. After a fast ride we arrive at the hotel and then we again need to fill out a lot of paper. After the administration we are assigned to bungalow 94. Completely at the end of the hotel premises, almost in the sea. There is a road from the main building to the different bungalows (328 in total). We unpack everything and then go for a walk. We don’t know what direction we need to go to see what, so we will discover tomorrow at daylight. At 00:30 we go to bed.
Sunday April 21, 2002: Excursion Port El Kantaoui
We get up at 09:00 and are not tired anymore. We have breakfast and return to our home after half an hour. We take our coat and go for a walk on the beach. We’re still looking for the harbor. We go to the other side than yesterday, but we don’t see anything that looks like a harbor. By the way, it is raining and it’s not warm. At 11:00 we return to the hotel, because there is a welcome meeting at 11:15. Is this good or bad? We are not much wiser from this meeting, only stupid excursions in German. We go out then an
d we do know where the harbor is supposed to be. It is 12:00 now and the sun is shining and it is great to walk from the hotel over the beach to the harbor. We arrive in the village at 12:30 and walk on the pier; great it is in the sun. After a break of 15 minutes we explore the village. It’s cozy, not too busy, you can say very calm. At about 14:00 we have something for lunch: calamari and salad maison, it’s good. About 20 Arabic people join us, because it starts to rain and we sit covered. Between the showers we visit some local shops. Timo finds a CD of Depeche Mode: on the cover it says ‘Greatest Hits 2002’ and on the CD itself it says ‘Greatest Hits 2001’. Cool. We stroll through the small streets and return to the hotel via the main road. It takes us about 20 minutes. On the road we see a supermarket and we buy some drinks for later that day, but we nowhere find a drop of alcohol. Eef buys a new sack for 10 Dinar (= 300 BEF or 7.5 Euro). We buy a bottle of Fanta against real thirst and go to the hotel. The sun is shining again; it’s now 17:00. We go to the beach and have fun. If we walk outside our bungalow, we almost are on the beach itself. After an hour the weather changes and it get cooler, so we go back inside. We take a shower and prepare to eat. At 19:00 we arrive in the restaurant and meet some people we were laughing at earlier. It seems everyone from our flight is located in this hotel. The food is good: soup, salad, fish, meat, couscous and dessert with a lot of fruit (especially strawberries). We drink a nice fresh bottle of Tunisian white wine. At 21:15 we’re back in the bungalow. Eef is reading info on Sousse and writes the diary. Timo is already asleep and Eef also sleeps at 22:00.
Monday April 22, 2002: Sousse
In the morning we were awake already very early, at about 07:00, but we fall back asleep and at 08:30 we are woken up by the alarm clock and we get out of bed. We have breakfast and then take a taxi to Sousse. We had our bag already with us when we went for breakfast. We pay 5,- TND, but alter it seems to be too much. We arrive in Sousse at the Medina (old town), but at the wrong side to follow our guided tour. So we walk the other way. There we see a tourist bureau and on the other side of the road the station. We need that to go to El Jem tomorrow. We check on the train; we need to get up early because the train leaves at 08:21. We will need to go early to bed today. After this experience, there is always something to experience with the Tunisians, we start our tour. It already almost is a tradition to get lost with these kind of guide tours. Eventually, after detours, we go directly to the ‘Great Mosque’ and buy a ticket and go in. A mosque is a mosque. It is OK, we stroll around; read some background info, watch good and go back out. Then we head for the ribat, we need to pay the entrance and enter. We don’t pay 1 TDN this time to take pictures. We check out every floor and we have a great view on the medina; but well yeah we did not pay anything, so no pictures. There is also a high tower here and we climb up to have an even better view. It is just great, but no pictures. Oeps, Timo suddenly without knowing has made one. After half an hour enjoying the view and the architecture we walk back out. Until now the walk is according to the guide; but the mosque and ribat are very close to one another. We have almost half a day very good weather, the sun is shining, there is not too much wind; we would appreciate it if it would stay that way. We move on and enter the Rue de Sicilie and then it goes wrong. We look for the right direction in the souq, but then it starts to go from bad to worse. We see the Zakkak-Mosque and by coincidence arrive at the El Kobba Museum. We then decide we’re just going to visit some things in the medina. Without a lot of trouble we arrive back at the starting point: Place Farhat Hached. We rest shortly o
n a bench and then look for something to eat. Back at the square we look at the menu of the restaurant ‘Christal’. The guy who is luring people speaks Dutch, even better than some Walloon people. His trick of speaking Dutch worked again, because we sit down and eat. We take half a liter of water, salad of squid and calamari, very good and only for 12 TND. Then we have enough power and go shopping, really we are. We look for a gift to Leen in the Soula-center. We find some things and want to buy it, but either it is too expensive or it is not beautiful. So we come out after half an hour empty handed. And then we are invited to taste a mixture of tobacco from a water pipe. It does not taste bad, and all of a sudden we are negotiating to buy one. The price is 115 TND, which is way too much. We don’t want to pay more than 30 or 35 (poor students). That guy is really doing his best to sell something, but with prices like this it’ll not work. Eventually, after a smoke and a long discussion we buy the water pipe for 30 TND. We quickly pay everything, they wrap it and we buy some tobacco and some charcoal and then we leave. We race through the city, buy some Boukha and tin foil for the pipe. We enter 2 supermarkets and walk on the dike of Sousse. It started to poor rain and we need to shelter. We take a taxi back to the hotel; we need to try out the pipe and drinks. At first it does not work very well, but then it starts to work fine. Eef is taking a nap. It doesn’t rain anymore but it’s quite chilly, even for Timo. He makes a tour of the hotel and then starts the travel report. At 19:00 we take a shower and go out for diner. We eat very well. Timo had a dessert: spaghetti with pistachio ice cream? We go back to the room and go to bed. We’ve lit our second candle.
Tuesday April 23, 2002: Monastir
In the Tunisian morning we get up, earlier than the alarm, this means it’s only 07:50. We planned to go to Monastir today; when we would go to a city we could find shelter more easily when it rains. Better than for example in el Jem. We go to Sousse with a cab. We had asked ‘La Port’, but we did receive ‘La Mer’. Timo thought he had already been here, but either he was wrong or the hotel was already removed. We walk to the metro or at least the direction we thought the metro was. We pass a stinking fish mine. We buy a ticket Sousse-Monastir and back and wait for the metro. That metro is a normal old train. We go to Monastir, pass the airport, the faculties of the university and the salt mines. After a ride of 30 minutes we arrive at the Monastir station. At the exit some Tunisian is requesting everyone to see the tickets. Three people, that’s nice. Now we know why they don’t know any unemployment. We start the exploration of Monastir. We see some shops, with the normal ‘don’t bother-us’ attitude and arrive at the Mosque of Bourghiba. There is also a small tourist office, but there is not a lot to find out. Then we visit the rabat, close to the great mosque. No mosque can be visited, that is really stupid. The only thing a tourist may visit is the rabat and that’s something we obviously do. It really is worth to stop here. As always you need to pay to take pictures, but we don’t do that (pay, I mean). After the visit we want to eat and drink something. Someone is stopping us and tells us he’s the chef from our hotel. He talks about Berbers and camels (dromedary), “The way of life in 30 different languages (French, English, German, Arab,…). He knew it all and we could even choose which he spoke). It will be French; and then we already should have known what would come. Two naïve Belgian join him. “Moi, je suis pas un guide, hein, j’ai peu de temps”. We walk away from the coast and next to the m
ausoleum of Bourghiba there is a small house ‘Berber center’. We get a tour through a fake camp of Berbers. Timo can sit on a ‘camelodary’ and then they receive an explanation and guided tour though the workshop. Eef is allowed to make a knot; it all looks nice. We check out some very big carpets in the room next door. Then we can sit down, we get some tea and we receive all the shit about the carpets. The Tunisian starts to be a lot more blunt to the guy and he shows after huge carpets the smaller ones, because he sees we are not very likely to buy one. In the meantime we already had said things like: “How are we going to get out of here? How can we get this settled?” We receive some more explanation on how orders are being done and then it’s our turn. SILENCE. A short discussion and the decision is taken. Timo has the honors. He starts with ‘Très gentil’ and ‘très intéressant’, ‘merci’ and ‘pas acheter’ and that guy stood there: he has lost an hour. They let us out and we give the guy some Dinar for the tea and the explanation and to sit on the dromedary. And guess now who turns up when we leave? Our guide: ‘Aussi quelque chose pour le guide?” What guide, what little time? Timo gives him 1.5 Dinar or something and then we can leave. We walk through town; want to eat something in first instance. We’ve been with the Berber and his carpets for over 1.5 hours. So we go out to look for a restaurant. Everywhere there are Tunisian and it’s too busy. We finally see something, have a salad and a sandwich with tuna and fries and then we visit the rest of town. The mausoleum from a distance and lie around in the city park. For Timo it’s that warm that he takes off his long trousers and puts his shorts on. The general impression of Monastir is nice and cool, a quiet town from the province, but nice. With these experiences we turned a bit wiser again and we can go back to the station. At 15:00 the train leaves and half an hour later we arrive in Sousse again. We take a taxi to Port and then walk to the hotel via the beach. It takes about 30 minutes. When we arrive in port El Kantaoui we’re both very tired, but the fresh seawater on our bear feet washes away the fatigue from the hot day rather fast. At 17:00 we’re back at our bungalow, the 94, we rest and take a shower. We buy some water in the supermarket on the other side of the boulevard, water for tomorrow, because tomorrow we will visit El Jem, a village in the desert with and amphitheatre, 1 station and 1 shop. It is located more to the south and according to Linda it is terribly hot there. But that is for tomorrow. The supper is served between 19:00 and 20:45 and we enjoyed it again, really nice and plenty. We want to go to bed early (21:30), because we need to take the 08:21 train. Very early isn’t it?
Wednesday April 24, 2002: El Jem
Today the program is El Jem, a small city with an amphitheatre – what else would we be doing there, about 64 kilometers from Sousse and 76 from Port El Kantaoui. We had set the alarm at 06:45, but we were already awake at 06:00, that’s not very odd, knowing we went to bed at 21:30. So at 07:00 we sit in the restaurant for breakfast. That early there are no pancakes yet, which is a pity. The buffet for breakfast is huge: bread (37 kinds), croissants, breakfast grains (cornflakes, they write corne flex), fresh vegetables, oranges, cheese, sausages, eggs in different formats, rice, eggplants and zucchinis, coffee, tea, fresh juice, chocolate milk, yoghurt and many, many more. But no pancakes. At 07:30 we’re ready and leave. We take the taxi to “La Gare” in Sousse. “Ça fait 5 Dinar jusqu'à la gare”, says the Tunisian. We: OK, that’s good. We arrive after 15 minutes: his counter is only at 3.8, but we’re not being difficult people. It’s only 07:45 and we’re way too early (I have told you, said Eef). We buy 2 tickets El Jem return and pay 5.6 TND each. The train is a bit too late, but we have a seat and that’s the most important thing. The train looks rather nice, with airco and pretty comfortable seats. On the opposite places there are two English women, a little bit nuts, but that will become clear later. At 09:15 we arrive in El Jem. The whole tourist-content of the train is moving immediately towards the theatre. The Tunisian people stay on the train and drive on to Sfax – we were thinking what they would be doing in El Jem. After a 10-minute walk we’re there. Very impressive. We had heard here was a theatre in the desert and nothing else, except 1 small booth. Now we’re here and the theatre is in the middle of town, we don’t see a desert and there are 30 or 40 shops. They ask 5.5 TND for a bottle of cola, 170 BEF and about 4 Euro. That is outrageous! It’s good we did buy some water yesterday. We made it here and we buy 2 tickets (4.2 TND) and 1 to take pictures. This time we do buy a ticket for that, because we know it is worth it and there are people checking the tickets out regularly. Once we entered, it really it so. The theatre is really beautiful and we walk around for about 2 hours. Here we encounter the two English ladies. One is rather normal, she stands back a bit, but the other one is climbing over walls and taking the hardest way, and there are normal stairs to walk on. Timo points that out to her and she was laughing at herself. They come up where we are and they start to talk and talk. She’s really funny. After some time they leave the theatre and we decide to stay for some more time. We check out everything really fast and then go out and look for directions to the museum. That is not very easy. We need to cross a railroad, completely unguarded, but everyone does it. We see by accident a smaller, older amphitheatre, well the remains of it. Not really much to see. It seems we’re on the right track, because we find the museum rather quickly from there. We are looking at the bag pack and
struggling to find money, when those two English women join us. They told us we did not have to pay for the museum, because the ticket is valid for the theatre and for the museum. Cool. We enter and see a lot of beautiful mosaics. Outside there are also excavations (yes, that’s for us!) and the remains of the “African House”. It did not become clear to us, where this was built for, but I think they don’t know it themselves. Meantime it’s lunchtime. We saw on the way to the museum a small restaurant and we go there. It looked clean and that is important here. We order spaghetti and ‘poulet rôti’ and two cola’s. We first have some olives; the food is good and they server very much. On the spaghetti – with sauce of hot harissa, spicy – there is half a chicken too. Dear, please help to eat tall of this! At the end of our lunch they give us a mint tea. All together this costs 9 Dinar, really not much. Stuffed we go and explore the rest of El Jem. It starts to strike that Tunisian people stare at the naked legs of Eef. She’s wearing shorts, because it is now too hot. It even is so hot, we start to feel annoyed by the heat. So we look for a quieter place. We arrive by coincidence on a market and Eef buys a ‘demi kilo de fraises’ for 0.700 Dinar; normally they only cost 0.500, but if you’re a tourist you pay more. We eat the strawberries with a view on the amphitheatre, because it seems to be the quietest place in El Jem. After a while it’s time to return to the station/ we’re at the station at 13:30 already and the train only comes at 14:04; but here is the only place where we can sit in the shadow. It is freaking hot. When the train arrives we get on it and at 15:00 we’re back in Sousse. We take the taxi to the hotel and arrive there at 15:20. We are no ready for it! On the fourth day here we finally swim. Not in the pool of course; we mostly keep that for one of the last days, but in the sea. The water is very cold, but we persevere and swim. Cool (in both senses). We stay there for half an hour at the beach and return then to the 94. We take a shower and write the diary. When we’re done it’s about 18:30 and we can go to eat. It’s still early, but that was also the case this morning and at noon. Today there was an extra cheese dish on the menu. We take no dessert, but have the cheese with a bottle of Sidi Saad, very good. We need to look for this wine and buy it to take home. At 20:30 we walk to Port El Kantaoui and in “Bar de la Quai” we drink two pints. We sit outside on the terrace and on the television there is football: Manchester United against Bayer Leverkusen. When we arrive it is 1-1 and when we leave it’s 2-2. Timo saw the second goal of Leverkusen and cheered. We thought there were only Germans in the bar, but it seems there were more English people. At 22:30 we leave back to the hotel. We’re really tired and fall immediately asleep. We had a long and exhausting day. We got up at 06:00 and now it’s 23:30. Sleep tight.
Thursday April 25, 2002: One day of rest
We get up the same time as normal. The weather does not look very bad, when we get up, but this changes rapidly. When we go out to have breakfast, the weather is bad; it’s not yet raining, but it looks like it can happen immediately. Small detail: Timo is not happy at all and this will take until about noon. Then it will get better. First the breakfast as usual, to be honest we’re already a bit tired of having always the same. After breakfast we want to lie on the beach. We are one of the few that dare to sunbathe I this type of weather. The sun is almost not shining at all and we can’t stay there for a long time. We want to go to Port El Kantaoui on foot. After a few moments and breaks to shelter – it rains like hell – we arrive in port just after midday. The first thing we do is find shelter. We stand there for 30 minutes and then run for 15 meters to a tavern. We have a sandwich-pizza tuna and have a cola each. So far for lunch. It rains still and we then go to another restaurant and have another lunch: merguez and calamari, very nice. After lunch we stop in a local bookshop to buy cigarettes, 1 carton of Gauloises for 25 Dinar and Marlboro for 29. After we have paid, we take the taxi back to the hotel. The guy is trying to rip us off for 3 Dinar, but we only pay 2. It’s only 15:30 and we’re already back at bungalow 94. Not too difficult with this type of weather: it rains unbelievably hard: we don’t like this! We rest on the bed and sleep and watch the European Championship of weightlifting on TV. At about 18:00 we prepare for diner. We eat warm dishes, but we have eaten too much today, just like a bunch of Italian people who are behaving disgusting. Afterwards we go out to have a drink at the Bar Saumon. Then it’s time to go to sleep.
Friday April 26, 2002: Sousse and rest
We are awake at 06:30 already, but are too lazy to get up. The weather looks good though: the sun is shining and there is no cloud in the sky. That’s a good thing after the bad weather of yesterday. At 08:00 we finally get up and go for breakfast. Apparently the Tunisians have discovered REM: every day from the morning till late at night this music plays, in the bars and in the restaurants. The CD starts with “Losing my Religion”. It’s good that we hear REM and not Dana Winner or Britney Spear the whole day. At 08:30 we take the taxi to Sousse. We need to chase cigarettes for Roel and Linda and a present for Leen. We are early I town, the souq are not even open. We notice clearly now we are not bothered all the time by those people. It seems as if they are not really awake themselves. We can do everything at ease now. We buy three bottles of Sidi Saad, very g
ood wine, that we already drank a few times and two tubes of harissa. We put everything in the bag and walk down the souq; it is very peaceful and quiet. We look for a joint because that is a piece we’re missing for our water pipe. We also buy a metal thing to take the charcoal and a little water pipe and only pay 16 Dinar for everything. It is about 10 and we want to drink something on a terrace. Timo drinks a cola and Eef café au lait. We buy another carton of cigarettes (2 Marlboro) for 15 Dinar for one carton. We look for herbs for Leen and for ourselves. To lower the price is not working very well today. There even is 1 guy who tells us it will be cheaper tomorrow than today. If you then ask him why, he pulls his shoulders. In this way this is no longer funny. We take a taxi back to the hotel and arrive there at 11:00. The weather is still good and Eef wants to charge her batteries. We go to the beach and rest in the sun. We swim in the sea. Timo thinks it’s cooler than the time before and does not go back. So back to the beach. We read the Humo-magazine, but at 14:00 we start to get hungry and we have had enough of the beach so we leave. We go to the pizzeria of the hotel and have a pizza. Very nice. Then we sit on our terrace and we try out the small water pipe and the big one too. Timo is having a fight to get it all working and after an hour it still does not work so we give up and decide to try at home. At 18:00 we take a shower and then have an aperitif at the bar: Ricard and Campari Orange. At 19:00 we eat; our table has candles and flowers; beautiful, although the flowers are geraniums and we don’t like them. It’s always like that on the last evening. We enjoy the meal and give Ismaël (our waiter) a tip. Here it’s good to have a beer. At 21:00 we go back to our bungalow and write the diary and watch some TV. Then we go to be and tomorrow it will end.
Saturday April 27, 2002: Return to Belgium
We get up at 07:30 and have breakfast, this time we have time to take a very good one, since this is the last time we’re here. After an hour we go to bungalow number 94 to pack. We put everything in and not really have a problem with it: we only have three bottles of liquor and 6 cartons of cigarettes – we quit smoking, but at home there are still smokers. At 09:30 we decide to drink one last goodbye beer at the bar on the beach. That early already drinking beer? Let’s hope it ends well. We stay there till 11:30. Then we move all our stuff towards the reception, because there is a pickup at 12:10. We walk along the pool and come to the conclusion we have not been in either one of the pools. We sit in the sofa at the reception, waiting like this is very boring. A little bit too late the airco-bus arrives and we need to wait for ‘Urbanus’, because he did not yet finish his whiskey. We’re only on the bus for 5 minutes and then he smokes his pipe, really disgusting. After half an hour we arrive at the airport and then the pushing and pulling starts to check in; it seems they’re all scared someone will need to stay here. No problem for us; we’ll stay a while longer. We need to spend out last 10 Dinar, because you’re not allowed to export money, so we buy some Mars, Snickers and other chocolates – we’re hungry, because it’s already 13:30. At 14:05 we board and everything goes very smoothly and we depart from Tunisia 10 minutes before schedule. We have a nice flight. When we arrive in Belgium it is 11 degrees: wow, that’s cold. We pick up the luggage, find mama Linda at the bar, drink a beer and then go home to Sint-Amands. It was very good, nice, funny, great, but of course way too short.
