Tunisia, Africa

Gosh it's been quite a while since I've blogged. I just got back from a trip to Africa with some girlfriends. What a trip! We all expected some sunshine and wondered if we would be okay wearing a bikini on the beach in a Muslim country. Well, we never got the chance to worry about that at all! We had A LOT of rain, and it was quite chilly! So, it was a different kind of trip than we anticipated, but that actually made it that much cooler, for me anyway. It was such an amazing cultural experience, and I'm proud of us for doing it. So here's the rundown of the trip, as best I can remember it.

There were 4 of us who went, Me, Rachel, Bethany and Sylvia. We all got on really well with each other, and I would travel with these girls again anywhere. Our personalities complemented each other well, which was useful on this trip especially. I must say too, that some of the best moments were those where we girls just sat round shooting the s&!t and being girly in our own little world. I think that's so important, for girls to have that time together. Ya know, like when you can dance to Brit Brit on the tree stump in the kitchen and it just makes sense! Love ya Bethers!! Or just sit and read all the latest US gossip magazines in peace, Rach we sure needed that! Okay, okay, run down of the trip:

Day 1: We flew out from London in the evening, arriving to the Tunis airport at around 10:30 pm. Our hotel was in Tabarka, which was meant to be a 2 1/2 hour drive from Tunis. 3 1/2 hours later, we finally arrived. That drive to the hotel was the only time I actually felt a bit uneasy. We were in the van, that had a familiar smell of my daddy's old farm truck, can't really explain it, but just outside, farm like. We went from paved roads to dirt roads. It was a long drive, but we made the best of it, we sang camp songs, ya know, made the best of it. Until, we got pulled over by the cops! The driver and the police were speaking to one another in Arabic, so we couldn't understand a thing, except they sounded angry with each other. The police officer was armed, and there was some random man hanging out with him. So sketchy! We were sat there in that van for at least 20 minutes, longest 20 minutes of my life. We were all saying our little individual prayers. We still don't know why we got pulled, maybe there was a curfew for transporting women, maybe the drivers registration was out, we don't know, but we finally left the scene, continuing our long journey to Tabarka. Then, we got pulled AGAIN, by another cop! The driver was not scary at all, so I still don't know what was going on. Maybe a seat belt violation? Anywho, got out of that too, and finally arrived to the hotel. We checked in and crashed immediately.

Day 2: We got up and it was raining. So we decided to just get dressed and go out to the grocery store and check out the town a bit. The grocery store was interesting. Everyone was interested in what we 4 American girls were doing in Tabarka, especially without our husbands, God forbid! It was funny. We got stared at a lot, but it was to be expected, as they don't see people like us around much. The people were very friendly and no one treated us inappropriately, they just stared a lot. "No problem, no problem"! So, we took our groceries back to the room, then went out for some lunch. There was not really much English spoken, and none written in Tabarka. French was the second language, so we all did the best we could. Thank goodness for the french phrase book that Sylvia bought at the Heathrow airport! I had pizza with shrimp on it for lunch, kinda weird. From that meal, I decided that we had to get out and about and experience some of the culture. So, that day was just all about the rain. We went back to the room and had a "porch afternoon". We sat out there, heard the call to prayer, watched it rain, which was quite relaxing, we drank some of the tasty beverages that we brought with us from Europe, listened to some good tunes, sang some Dixie Chicks "Cowboy Take Me Away" to the top of our lungs for all the locals to hear (bet that was a first for Tabarka), gossiped, just had a good ole girly afternoon, but this time, in Africa! We went to a shop across the street and did some shopping. Bethany and I gave the shop attendant a right hard time with our haggling, we are good! We made some weird, but very tasty food that we bought from the grocery store for dinner that night, I like to call it Rachel's tomato saucy, cheesy croissant thingys. We just hung out and it was great! Surprisingly, that was a quite late one for us!

Day 3: Today we got up and actually showered. We went out to find some lunch and to see how we wanted to spend the day. We had planned to walk to a cool graveyard we had seen, but well, of course it started raining, again! So, we walked around a little, then found a restaurant that served alcohol, we were sold. So, we had a really nice Tunisian lunch of fresh seafood and couscous. The Tunisian white wine was really nice too! So this lunch was actually more like a really early dinner, as it was already about 5pm by now. I'm trying to remember how it all went. After the dinner, we wanted to check out a shop that we had seen the day before. And so it begins! We shopped for a while, quite a while actually, then when we got ready to pay, we found ourselves just standing there. The shopkeepers came and pulled up four little camel skin stools (kinda like a beanbag chair, but stuffed with paper), side note, we later purchased 4 of these, they are awesome! Anyway, so we sat, right in the middle of the shop. The guys brought us this really yummy mint tea, which was mighty sweet. They pulled up chairs too and sat down with us. Next, out came the hookah, which we all smoked from (cherry tobacco). It was cool. I, obviously don't smoke, but I really enjoyed the hookah, really cool. Then they get out there bongo drums and start making music for us. They kept singing "Shakira Shakira", so I busted out the iPhone and played it for them. They (by "they" I mean the shopkeepers, the locals), were amazed by the iPhone. Anyway, next they get up and start dancing for us, really really awesome! Then Rach and I get up and they wrap these jingly skirts around us and show us how to shake it, it was so much fun! Next Bethany and Sylvia shook their salt shakers! We drank more tea, smoked more hookah, just spent a rainy afternoon being thoroughly entertained. Something of which we probably wouldn't have had the opportunity to do if it had been sunny and were out on the beach, so thank goodness for the rain I guess! We finally haggled our way to some great bargains on all of our loot, and then left. We stopped at a little place and had some drinks before heading home. They served us an artichoke appetizer which was really tasty, and a nice low calorie nibbler. Then, oddly enough, we had a plate of fries sent over to our table by one of the gentlemen in the bar. Some men send over a bottle of wine, some men send over a plate of fries. We ate them all the same! We definitely made the best of a rainy day!

Day 4: So, today was supposed to be our bright and sunny day in Tabarka. We had even hoped to be able to get our swimsuits on and head to the beach. Well, not so much. We had rain, again. Not as much rain, but certainly couldn't lay out. So, we spent the morning in the hotel, catching up on sleep and on our US gossip magazines. We finally got out and about to walk to the castle that was in town. We began our journey, then found another cute restaurant by the marina, so we stopped in for some lunch. Then, finally, THE SUN CAME OUT!!! It actually got a little warm while we were sitting there. The one time I didn't have my sunglasses with me, the sun came out! I'm not complaining though. So, we had another amazing lunch. The server brought out a platter of fresh fish and other seafood for us to choose from. The Lobster was a wiggly fella. So, we ordered the Lobster, yummy! Oh, it was so nice sitting outside by the sea. We have more amazing Tunisian white wine, more bottles than I care to mention. What a great afternoon! Then, we left and went back to our shop to pick up a few more trinkets we had our eyes on. Again, we sat, had a lot of tea, a lot of hookah, another fun time in the shop. Then, oh yeah, we were propositioned to go ride a camel!!! Oh, how exciting. The guy that took us, Aeymen, was a new face, so we asked one of the guys in the shop to ride with us, as we had to ride in a car to get to the camels, and the guys in the shop were the closest we had to someone we could trust. Yeah, could have been a potentially dangerous situation, but we had to do it! So, off to the camels we went. They weren't there at first, I believe they were off being fed. So, we left, and came back. The camels were big! They didn't sit down for us to mount either like I thought they would. We had to be hoisted up on them by the shop men. Then off we went into the sunset! Singing Kenny Chesney "when the sun goes down" all the way. The views were breathtaking. Such an awesome experience!! After we were done with the camels, we went for a ride up to the castle that we had tried to get to earlier. It was cool, again, potentially dangerous, as it was getting dark, but still, had to do it. Then we went for a cool dinner where they had been cooking our food all day in a clay pot. They had to crack the pot open with a stick. Rach and I had prawns, Bethany and Sylvia had the lamb. Really really cool. The weird part was that there were about 40 men in this tiny little restaurant, and then the 4 of us girls!! I felt like we were the feature entertainment of the evening. After dinner, our camel man and some other new friends from the shop invited us to the local casino and promenade, but we declined and invited them to the local bar (which we could walk to, the casino and promenade required a car ride, and it was already after dark). So, we had an evening out with the locals, drinking at the bar, weird but really cool! This was our last night in Tabarka, and it ended well!

Day 5: Today we checked out of our hotel in Tabarka and had our hotel taxi drive us back to Tunis. We decided to spend our last night in Tunis so that we could be closer to the airport the next morning when we had to leave. There was a bit of drama around the taxi ride. In our late night conversation with the camel man, we told him he could transport us to Tunis. It turns out the hotel had to transport us, as we had already paid them for it. So, our camel man stalked us all morning trying to get more money out of us. Lordy! So, we finally got on the road to Tunis, such a long drive! We arrived to our hotel in Tunis, thanks to Virgil for booking, and it was cool. Felt a little like South of the Border, but it was good to just be out of a taxi and settled for the day. We ate a really bad buffet for lunch and dinner, and drank a lot of watered down wine, but it was all included in the cost of the hotel, so we couldn't complain. We had about half an hour of sunshine, so we went out to the beach and took some photos. It was really pretty there, and I would love to see Tunisia in the warm, sunny weather. We just spent our last day recuperating. We played cards, I learned how to play gin rummy, and even won a few times. We shopped some more, obviously! Then we turned in for the night, as we had an early flight the next morning.

So, that was the trip to Africa. It was a different vacation than any other I have ever taken, but I loved it and am so glad we did it! Next destination, Madrid for Cinco de Mayo!!!

Until next time,
Jac