Monday, May 25: Enjoying Tozeur

Narration by Kit:

When we woke up on Monday morning, I was feeling much better.

That is, until I saw the delicious array of breakfast goodies awaiting us at the tantalizing hotel buffet:

It looks like something you'd really want to sink your teeth into and savor, doesn't it? Shredded carrots and old salami!

This was also very appetizing (too bad you can't see all the flies):

I opted for bread, jam, and honey, which actually wasn't so bad. And for the first time in two days, I was hungry.

After a somewhat lengthy debate (chilling out in one spot vs. moving again to another place), we decided to head back to Tozeur to see if there were better offerings.

Before checking out of the hotel, I snapped this pic of Miguel from the balcony of our room, showing the hotel pool:


And we took one last photo of the "palm basket" from the hotel patio:


Then we headed to the louage station to catch a one-hour mini-van ride northeast to Tozeur. We didn't have to wait long, as our van filled up fast. It was a really pleasant ride with good company and a nice breeze:


I was huddled into the back seat, despite the fact that I am pretty sure I was the tallest person in the vehicle. I sat next to the most delightful (if severely cross-eyed) woman, who had just graduated from a techology institute and showed me her diploma. She even gave me a pearl pin she was wearing as a gift when the ride was over:

Re-looking at this picture, I am just realizing that the back window appears blown out and fixed with foam and foil. Nice.

We arrived in Tozeur and immediately realized we made the right choice. There were taxis everywhere and a bustling large town atmosphere, as well as a real infrastructure for solo travelers and tourists. Our guidebook recommended the Residence Karim, and although very simple, it was perfect for our needs (plus it was only about $20/night total). It had a beautiful tiled courtyard and was very pretty & quiet, even though it was located on the main drag through town:



Our room was perfectly pleasant. We paid a few more dollars for A/C (that contraption at the top left of the photo) which proved to be more of a very weak fan, but we were able to open the window and get a slight breeze, although the mosquitoes were out in force so we had to close it at night:


It should be noted that our bathroom was very interesting. It was about the size of a phone booth, and the toilet was located inside the shower stall, making for a most unique bathing and bodily function experience.

Despite this small discrepancy, we found the place very lovely:



We immediately headed out to explore the town and found a bike rental shop two doors down from our hotel, where you could rent a bike for about $2/hour. Miguel thought the manager looked like Kobe Bryant -- I look a bit like the white Ray Charles:


We got our bikes and headed out to the Tozeur palm oasis, which is thousands of acres in square footage. There's a beautiful paved lane that winds through the trees, and it takes roughly one hour to do it. We took lots of pics along the way:




A lot of rich people have private palm plantations and gorgeous homes nestled amongst the trees, entered into through giant, decorative wooden doors surrounded by flowers:






We came across one door that was open and peeked inside. A woman saw us looking and invited us in... turns out the place was a party rental facility for dinners and weddings. We were invited inside to meet the manager and after a rather awkward explanation in Arabic, in which I stated that we were only nosy tourists who were renting bikes, we made our way back to the bike path and continued our ride:



We hit a patch of long road that had no shade, and we were both getting pretty hot, sweaty, and thirsty. Around this point, we came to a local zoo, marked by a Tyrannasaurus Rex statue, a common creature found in small zoological parks:


The ride ended up in Tozeur's old city, which is famous for its intricate brickwork:


Then we headed back to the bike shop:


We thought we might visit Tozeur's historical and cultural museum, but it was around $20/person, and we heard it was kind of lame. So we just took pictures outside:


We had a quick pizza lunch and wrote some postcards at a little restaurant across the street from the museum and then headed back to our hotel, where we needed to meet a tour that we had arranged to be on earlier that morning. We were about to head out on a four-hour desert and Star Wars super tour!!!

Ironically, the first stop on our Land Cruiser tour was the town of Nefta. Hahaha! We're baaaack! We got to wander around the old desert city in daylight though, which was pretty amazing. It's like a twisting labyrinth through tan brick lined streets and tiny archways. As it was late day before sunset, most villagers were still taking siesta so it was mostly deserted:


Here's Miguel's favorite storefront:

Not one item in the store had anything to do with Star Wars though. It sold the same junky souvenirs as 99% of the other places in Tunisia. What happened to innovation and creativity? This place would clean house if it actually specialized in Star Wars-type merchandise. Those Star Wars nerds are hardcore (and I know because I was traveling with one of them).

For example, Miguel spotted some sort of space pod used in filming Star Wars (the only item actually related to Star Wars in Nefta) and got his photo in front of it:


Here we are back at the "Jewish door" from the night before:


We were walking around with a British guy and a Canadian guy that were on our tour. By chance, we came across this very cool museum, which is actually a private home that a local man turned into a tourist site. Here is the house's courtyard:


The kitchen:





A bedroom loft:


And a very interesting Bedouin "good luck" symbol... a fish and the hand of Fatima:


We headed up to an attic with tiny doorways:


And giant storage areas for tools and food:


This is the owner, whose family owns and still lives in part of the house:


We headed back to Nefta's "basket" vista for photos. I like this one that Miguel took, which shows a cloister of sufi mosques along the rim of the canyon. You can see the salt flats in the background:


Here's our Land Cruiser:


We finally left Nefta and headed out on the part of the tour we were most excited about.. seeing the Saharan dunes and seeing the filming locations for Star Wars and the English Patient!



We arrived at our first location, called the Camel's Neck, which is located next to a salt flat. Here's our driver, Taha, who was so awesome there are no words for it. The man exuded confidence and charm. Miguel even developed a guy crush...


A souvenir stand literally in the middle of nowhere:


And the Camel Neck rock looking over the salt flats, where, according to Miguel, Darth Maul landed his craft in the Phantom Menace:


The salt flats:






View from the top of Camel Neck:






Looking back up at Miguel:


An idea of the scale of this thing:


Next up: insane driving skills by Taha. We flew over this hill here, almost going airborne and then shooting straight down, making us all scream (or at least me and the Dutch woman next to me). Taha stopped at the bottom, and Miguel took a series of pictures showing the next Land Cruiser making the plunge:




After a few gravity defying turns up and down the steepest hills I've ever been on, we moved onward to the desert dunes, where Taha scared the shit out of us again by driving at insanely fast speeds through the sand and popping over dunes with steep downward pitches:




Miguel, who was in the front seat, took these photos of Taha racing a rival Land Cruiser:



Finally we arrived at our destination overlooking an English Patient set. Taha very adeptly parked the car at a 45 degree angle on a sand precipice. Other groups even came over and took a picture of the vehicle because it defied gravity (although it's hard to tell from this photo). Miguel got a picture with his hero:


Looking out to the dunes:



You can see the set out on the left:


Desert shots:






Closer shot of the English Patient set:


Then onward for around 15 minutes to the Star Wars Mos Espa set, where they filmed the Phantom Menace during the 199os. We read this is the best maintained of all the Star Wars sites in Tunisia, as the original sets, from the 1970s, located near the southeastern city of Tatouine, are totally dilapitated and smell like urine.

The Mos Espa site, however, did not disappoint. Miguel was like a kid in a candy shop:

"I promised Uncle Owen I'd work on the moisture evaporators."



Here's one of my favorites... Miguel portraying a Jedi (NERD!!!):





Looking down at Mos Espa from a dune nearby:


We got to enjoy the sunset from a dune there, even though the wind was whipping up fine grains of sand into our eyes, ears, and nose... I was still feeling sand in my teeth the next morning. It was hard to turn around and face the camera because the sand stung your face so badly. Now I know why they wear those gauzy turbans on their faces. The cloudiness in the photos is from the sand whizzing around in the air:




Miguel's famous "Luke Skywalker on Tatouine" pose:


Trying not to be sandblasted (a severe sort of dermatological treatment):



The last shot of the science fiction fan and his dream location:


On the road back to the highway, we spotted some wild camels:




And a huge scarab beetle...


Once we got back into town, we had Taha drop us off at our hotel, where we cleaned up and then headed to an Italian restaurant we had read about, called La Fontana, owned by an Italian husband and wife. It did not disappoint. After the Judeo-Tunisian meal, it was my favorite dinner in Tunisia. I got ravioli and Miguel got tagliatelle with cream and bacon sauce:


I was so psyched to feel mostly healthy again. And well-fed and in a very cool place:


A great end to a great day.