Wednesday, March 11
After we woke up from a cold night in the desert we headed back on jeeps to a hotel to change in their bathrooms and grab some breakfast. Then we all climbed back into our jeeps and headed out into the desert again.
In our jeeps on the way to the Star Wars set!
Our jeep and driver!
This time we arrived at the Star Wars set where the village of Tatoween was constructedby George Lucas - it's basically a ghost town now.
It was pretty interesting because as we know - Amelia is not a huge Star Wars fan so I didn't really know anything about the set or the movie. Thankfully we had a few guys who are Star Wars buffs and shared their knowledge with us.
I believe this is called a vaporator...
After the Star Wars set we headed to our hotel - an amazing hotel. When you watch a show on N.Africa - and it focuses on Tunisia - this is one of the hotels they talk about. It was sooo nice. We did a bit of hiking and walking around the area - which was in the mountain oasis of Tunisia.
While out hiking!
That night we had a fabulous dinner. I had a big problem at all of our hotels - espeically this one - because their were these HUGE tables full of deserts. Ohhh my goodness they were so good!!! Tunisians also like oranges alot - had some of the best oranges of my life there.
Thursday, March 12
We woke up and took the buses to a train station and got on the Red Lizard train. It went through a sensational canyon that reminded me a lot of the Grand Canyon. At first it was a bit sketch though because it was very flat - and I was thinking to myself - I could go back to Lubbock and see this... but then we got into the canyon area and it was amazing.
It was really stunning. The train was really cute as well - reminded you of something you would see in Disney World.
After the train we went back to the hotel and hung out by the pool. There was a little shack type thing across from the hotel and I walked over because I was a bit bored with the pool scene. So I went over and was looking at some of the things and the man at the hut and I started talking. First he tried Arabic with me, obviously that didn't work, and then he tried French, again a no-go. Finally he tried Italian, which he wasn't very good at and neither was I. But we made it work - got our basic points across. He was really nice and ended up giving me some desert roses for free. They look like this:
Apparently the sand in the Sahara makes them through some form of compression and little bits of water...
I headed back to the hotel and ran into some friends who were going to hike up the "hill" beside our hotel. So I changed and went with them. This was not what people from West Texas would call a hill - but it wasn't a mountain either. It was pretty steep and had lots of sliding rocks - so we had to be very careful.
We watched the sun set at the top as well :)
Friday, March 13
That morning was another long travel day. We stopped at the Roman ruins in Sbeitla and then went to our hotel in Hammamet. The ruins were pretty interesting - but by this point many of us were "ruined out" so we resorted to climbing on the ruins (no one told us we couldn't so we did...)
up on top of the world!
We arrive at our hotel in Hammamet and had dinner there. We walked out to the beach and walked for a bit, stuck our feet in the very cold water....
After dinner and the beach the hotel brought in a band and a DJ and had a dance party type thing down by the bar. It was very fun. We pretty much took over the place and had a massive party.
Saturday, March 14
We woke up and headed towards Kairouan, the fourth holiest city in the Muslim world. It's an extremly important site of pilgrimage in North Africa for Islamic pilgrims.
Not at the mosque - but getting there. The signs are of the president - elections are in October I believe but he will be the only one on the ballot. He's been president for a loooonnggg time, but he's been able to do some fabulous things for the country so the Tunisians don't mind and don't think anything of it :)
The Great Mosque was really nice. We learned alot of really interesting details from our guide about it. As a sign of respect for the culture most of us ladies wore scarfs over our heads - so it became a game to find who you were looking for based off of headscarfs....
In front of the mosque
some of the most adorable girls you have ever seen in your life
inside the mosque. All of the rugs were donated to the mosque by the families that attend there.
After the mosque we went towards the Medina, but first we stopped at a rug making place. Oh my gosh these rugs were soooooooooo beautiful. Extremly expensive too.
a woman making a rug - she probably won't finish it for another 4 - 6 months....
A bit of time at the medina and then back to the hotel for the BEACH!!!
Into the Mediterranean sea!
after we went under - it was FREEZING!!!
After we all cleaned up from the salt and the sand we had dinner and then prepped to go out for our last night in Tunisia! They called a local bar, Club Havanna, and they opened up early for us so we could get there before the local crowd hit. It was a bunch of fun!! Lots and lots of dancing and sweaty gross pictures ;)
Melissa, myself and Kelly pausing our dancing to take a photo!!
The night was reallllllllllyyyyyy fun - got back extremly late. Felt really great to crash into my bed once we got back to the hotel.
Stop sign in Arabic and English!
Sunday, March 15
We had the morning free so Joeline and I took a cab down to the medina to do some last minute shopping - aggressive men at the medina. They also wanted me to buy something for 150 dinar when I had paid 5 dinar for one 2 days prior. HAHA. I got it back down to 5 dinar though - just goes to show you how much they try to rip you off!
Beautiful Tunisian doors!
last view of the medina!
amelia! it's so cool to see all your pictures and whatnot! yay!!!
ReplyDeletelooks like you're having a blast! hope all is well.