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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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 Casablanca,
Morocco
DAY 2 Jendouba, Tunisia
DAY 3 Le Kef, Tunisia
DAY 4 Douz, Tunisia
DAY 5 Matmata-El Jem,
Tunisia
DAY 6 Kairouan, Tunisia
DAY 7 Tunis, Tunisia
DAY 8 Carthage-Sidi Bou
Said, Tunisia
DAY 9 Bardo Museum,
Tunis, Tunisia
DAY 10 Tunis, Tunisia
DAY 11 La Marsa, Tunis,
Tunisia
DAY 12 Casablanca-Ifrane,
Morocco

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

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
At Ricks Cafe 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
Alicia walking over an underground Bulla Regia, we flagged a cab back to Jendouba and boarded
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 bus-
station, 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.
We then met a guy whose ex-wife was from Texas, Woman herding sheep in the hills above Le Kef
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
Traditional Matmata pit dwelling down into the town, we found that navigation was
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
pizza shop called “Miami” whose employee The minaret overlooking the medina wall and
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
The Prayer Hall inside the Kairouan Mosque 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
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
Sidi Bou Said, in the far off backdrop to the right is was not only going to be ridiculously expensive but
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

The Bab El Khadrah gates. 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 The Halfaouine Mosque.
15 minutes later as we were trying to make our way
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
return to the US – and we slept in anticipation for Alicia enjoying the extra day at La Marsa
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.