Tunis to Kelibia
Trip Start
Jul 26, 2010
1
7
60
Trip End
Oct 31, 2010
Kelibia, Tunisia
Friday, August 6, 2010
Our hotel included breakfast, and after being ripped apart for dinner the night before, we took full advantage to get our own back at the breakfast table and drove out of Tunis feeling good about life.
We did not find Tunis particularly appealing and so decided not to stay another night in the city and instead head for new territories. The first thing on our list was to head up to the northern most point of Africa, since we also hope to get to Cape Agulhas at the end of our trip. This was only 90km away and we thought a couple hours would be more than enough time to see it all properly. Three and a half hours later after passing through countless small towns and doing our first off roading, we finally made it. Unfortunately getting out was even worse than getting in. The 4 tonne Ford was not initially in the mood to make it back up the dunes as is, so we deflated the tyres and blazed a new trail back to the path.
The northern part of Tunisia did not impress us much, mainly because of the smell of death that engulfed the car every couple of kilometres. We think the stench comes from where the sheep and chickens are slaughtered and left to bleed alongside the road.
The rules of driving in Tunisia are quite unique. Bicycles and scooters seem to be a law unto themselves, and effectively do whatever they want. We found this out the hard way when we followed a scooter up a road only to be stopped by a policeman who indicated to us that we had been heading the wrong way up a one way road. He however had no problem with the scooter heading up that road. We have now learnt to not take cues from bicycles, scooters or horse carts.
Anyway, after what was now a 6 hour trip to the northern point of Africa, we decided to head to Cap Bon, the peninsula to the east of Tunis, with scenic white beaches along the Mediterranean Sea. A youth camp was found 50m from the beach with a friendly owner named Faisel. The owner brought over a couple of girls to introduce to us, who Chezzy thought he was trying to sell! Chez very politely refused the kind offer in complete bewilderment and ran to hide behind the car. As it turned out the girls were the social leaders of the camp and were inviting us to join their camp fire later. Chezzy on top form again.
Despite this slight mix up, we did join what appeared to be some kind of ceremony that was in Arabic and French. There was chanting, dancing and skits, all of which made absolutely no sense, but was great experience of local culture. We went off to bed well after midnight but the noise continued around us right through the night, not ideal with many hours needed to be driven the following day.
