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After gorging myself on the lard-dripping food of Eastern Europe, I was looking forward to the lighter olive oil infused food of Mediterranean Tunisia. On our first day in the country we followed the advice of our Rough Guide and went to a nice cafeteria/pizza joint near the entrance to the medina. We looked at the food they had on display and everyone agreed it looked tasty. Anne took the kids to find a seat and I ordered two different pizzas with the fewest ingredients on them, chocolate pancakes, a Tunisian chicken dish for Anne, and sandwiches for me and Dax. They rang me up and the cost of the meal including drinks was under $15. Tunisia was shaping up to be another good, cheap place to eat.

After paying, I ran the sandwiches and pancakes to the family and went back to wait for the pizzas. In our family, pizza is a common meal. At home the feuds over whether to order Domino’s or Pizza Hut have almost turned bloody. But one thing they all agree on is they like their pizzas plain. I can occasionally slip a pepperoni or a ham topping in the mix to keep it interesting and Anne might spring for a barbeque chicken version, but the kids will always go with cheese, extra cheese, or extra extra cheese if they need to choose three toppings. I picked up the first pizza, and it appeared to be plain with the exception of a few olives. The second however was completely covered with tuna. I looked back at the menu and saw some variation of the word neptune in the description. That half a semester of french in college really wasn’t helping me on our first day in a French speaking country, but I should have recognized the Roman god of the sea and steered clear of this pizza. I told the woman behind the counter, “Merci,” and slinked away to the family. I dropped the pizza in the center of the table and waited for everyone’s response. I knew what would happen, but I did it anyway. “Yuck.” “What is that?” “Something stinks!” “What’s that fish smell?” I picked the pizza up and set it on a bench behind us and let everyone eat their other food. It was not a very good start to eating in Tunisia, and unfortunately it didn’t get much better.

Everywhere we went in Tunisia we struggled to find a food we liked. I had very high hopes for their chicken and couscous dishes but each time we ordered them we found the chicken to be overcooked and the couscous dishes to be covered in a plain tomato sauce. We tried both local and tourist places in Tunis, Hammamet, Kairouan, Tozeur, and Matmata. In each case we failed to make any converts to Tunisian food or even find something we wanted to order a second time. I looked around at what the locals were eating and our tuna pizza was not an aberration. Almost all their dishes can be covered in canned tuna. As I looked at what they were ordering and tried to copy them the next time there was only one thing I found I liked and would go out of my way to eat again, giant legumes. These light green giant beans were the size of my thumbs. I’m not sure if these were fava beans. The locals just called them “legumes,” and they where a tasty addition to an otherwise bland meal. And they were my one highlight

I can assure you I tried to find others. The one food I had heard about before we arrived in Tunisia was a local concoction called a “brik.” The brik sounded like my kind of thing, a fried pastry the size of your hand filled with egg, cheese, and tuna. Unfortunately I had a hard time with the briks. I don’t know if it was the pastry or the way they cooked them, but usually they tasted like a grease sandwich without a strong flavor to overcome the grease. I am sure there are restaurants that do them in a way I would have liked, but we didn’t ever find one.

Tunisia was only the second place where everyone in the family struggled with food; the first was Cambodia. Perhaps we were missing something. Perhaps we are just too spoiled or perhaps we were not adventurous enough. We passed on camel steaks and as I am the only real seafood eater we didn’t enjoy any of the fruites de mare. (Now the French is kicking in.) After the first week of struggling to find a local dish or fast food we liked, I finally gave in and started ordering the same food each day from a local cafe. Each day I would walk into the same little cafe and order six paninis and six chocolate crepes. Some days I would do it twice. If I had a scale, I it would be nice to see how much weight I lost in Tunisia. I promise to gain it all back in Argentina.

Technorati Tags: Family travel, food, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Tuna Pizza, Tunisia

Dax has always been our family history buff. Years of watching the History Channel and other forms of educational TV have left him with at least a cursory understanding of most of the countries we’ve visited before even arriving. While he enjoys most history there are two subjects that have long been his favorites. The first is World War I and the second is Hannibal and the Punic Wars. When we were putting together our itinerary, he expressed interest in visiting Carthage, the once great competitor to Rome. He understood and explained to us that there was not much left of Carthage as the Romans utterly destroyed the city and salted the earth around it. However, we all thought it would be a great thing to see and let our imaginations fill in the gaps for this ancient civilization. We are pretty good at imagining ancient Chinese, Indian, Moghul, Zulu, Greek, Roman, Islamic, Trojan, and Byzantine civilizations, so we figured adding in the Carthaginians would be easy.

With our Hollywood-trained eyes we climbed the hills overlooking Carthage and pictured the ancient port. From this vantage point there was little to no evidence the poor Carthaginians ever existed. Today we could see a nice Mediterranean Muslim city, complete with small houses painted white with rich blue doors and blue wrought-iron adorning every window. From the hill there was not even a sign of the triumphant Romans. Our imaginations this day were not up to the task. This was an ancient capital that was thoroughly underwhelming. Hannibal himself spent much of his life away from Carthage; maybe it wasn’t so great even then.

We gave up finding anything Carthaginian and prepared ourselves to see some Roman ruins. We were expecting them all to be overshadowed by the memories of the ruins we saw in Turkey, but we were wrong. Anne and I have visited Roman sites in Italy, Turkey, Israel, Spain, France and Bulgaria and were shocked to find a subtle but important difference between all these sites and their Northern African counterparts. In Rome proper and other similar sites the inhabitants decorated their villas, shops, baths, etc. with colorful frescos which have faded and disappeared in most places not covered in volcanic ash. In North Africa the inhabitants left their walls unadorned and instead invested in magnificent mosaics as their flooring of choice. These wall to wall mosaics have been preserved in great numbers and are on display at the Bardo in Tunis and the Archeological Museum in El Jem. As we entered these museums we wondered why they had put all the best pieces near the entrance, but as we rounded each corner we were blown away by the ever improving mosaics covering the floors and the walls.

It was wonderful to witness these treasures in such abundance. We are accustomed to such shows of grandeur as part of a king’s or sultan’s palace but here the mosaics were spread across the entire upper and merchant class, which accounts for their plentitude. I expressed to Anne my desire to have a family mosaic as part of our house. Rather than balking at the high cost, she instead took offense to the idea of us immortalized on our floor Roman style (in the buff). So much for that idea.
The ancient wonders of Tunisia did not stop here. El Jem, a few hours south of Tunis, is a small town with a large colosseum. This colosseum is second only to the one in Rome in size and better preserved. Our family spent a good couple hours hanging out in this marvel. Dax, Anne, and I took turns wandering through the many levels while the little kids and McKane set up gladiator fights between the large black ants they found in the center. These little insects would pull at each other until one lost a leg or a head. While they sat practicing a small scale version of this venue’s violent past, Dax and I decided to contemplate what the colosseum had been used for between the fall of the Romans and the rise of the tourists. We imagined Arab camel fairs, weekend date markets, and the odd animal fight taking place with nobody sitting in the stands.

What was more amazing was the fact that this colosseum had escaped the fate of many other Roman ruins which had been dismembered for future construction projects. As we travelled to different mosques throughout Tunisia, we were impressed by the great Corinthian columns incorporated into the local architecture, especially the historic Islamic sites. One of these places in particiular stood out. We visited Kairouan to see the Great Mosque, the fourth holiest site in Islam and home to the world’s oldest minaret. This minaret did not have the common missile shape of most minarets today but was a large, squat tower built a mere hundred years after the death of Mohammed. At nearly 1500 years, it is also the oldest islamic building we have ever seen. To my surprise the tower was made out of Roman building blocks complete with Latin inscriptions and bordered by rows of Roman columns. If the Romans had left anything of Carthage, I am sure we would have found it here as well.

History has many layers, of which we can hope to understand only a small part. In Tunisia those layers bump up against each other in unexpected and engaging ways. The juxtapositions have left us more curious about history and probably influenced us in ways we don’t yet know. If you come to our house in a few years and we have a rather revealing mosaic in our entry or an ant farm that looks a whole lot like a colosseum, you can flash a knowing smile and ask us how we liked Tunisia.

Technorati Tags: Bardo, Carthage, Colosseum, El Jem, Islam, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Tunis, Tunisia

After you’ve been away from the developed world for a while, you forget the degree to which safety has become entrenched in our lives. Seat belts, handrails, crosswalks, disinfectants, and strict codes and regulations punctuate our experiences in every means of transport and almost all settings. Much of the world has neither the ability nor the inclination to enforce such conventions. Anything with wheels is loaded with as much cargo–human, animal, and otherwise–as it can carry and sometimes more. People ride on rooftops, hang from bumpers and siderails, and cram themselves with sweaty masses into putrid, filthy spaces in an effort to get from one place to another. Anything that can be eaten is eaten, even if spoiled or tainted, because when you’re desperately hungry, such distinctions are irrelevant. Any structure that provides protection from the elements is inhabited even if it’s in danger of toppling, collapsing, or exploding because short-term survival outweighs long-term safety.

We’ve learned to adapt to the local conditions as we’ve traveled, understanding that a certain level of risk is required to experience the world. So far we’ve stayed both safe and healthy even though we’ve gone months without seatbelts and days without clean clothes. We’ve ridden unpredictable creatures through treacherous landscapes, eaten more than a few cockroach-riddled entrees, and hurled down sand dunes on flimsy plastic mats. Somehow our combination of common sense and good fortune have carried us through everything we’ve encountered.

This is why when we arrived at our Western-styled beach resort in Tunisia we did not expect to have our closest brushes with danger in all our global wanderings. Here’s how our week played out.

We arrived off the train from Tunis eager to relax and put in some serious school time. With 16 hours of daylight, we figured there would be plenty of time to enjoy the Mediterranean, swim in the pool, and submit Geometry and Biology tests online. In addition to these activities, we discovered some unexpected diversions as well. Our first day there we heard some strange whistling come from the beach and noticed some parachutes rising from the surf. Parasailing! I’ve always wanted to do it and even hunted for a recommended spot in the north of Australia a few years ago to no avail (it was off-season). Tom rushed out to the beach where a couple of locals were blowing whistles and dangling from the harnesses in an attempt to drum up business. He worked out a deal with the boat driver for all of us to take a turn–3 sets of 2 riders–and vowed to return later that day. There was still a chill in the air and Dax was jamming through his lessons, so I told Tom we should wait for a warmer day. After all, we would be there for 5.

The next day the air was hot and the wind was strong, perfect conditions for a parasail. We scampered out to the beach discussing who would ride with whom. McKane and I were up first. Dax would take Kieran and Tom would take Asher. The whistling, playboy salesmen directed us to jump in our harnesses while they got the parachute and boat in position. As soon as both were lined up, they clipped a few carabiners into our harnesses and started shouting and barking as if our takeoff was both imminent and urgent. We expected a little instruction and a safety briefing but got only this: (to McKane) You do nothing; (to me) You hold on to these ropes. Do not let go. When I blow the whistle, pull on the left rope. When I signal, do nothing.

“But how long is our ride? Do we need to anything about steering?” My questions were in vain as I was already in the air. We had gone from standing on the beach to being suited and airborne in a period of about 90 seconds. As we rose, 100 feet, 200 feet above the water, I was exhilarated by the view and the sensation of flying. Quickly however, I realized that my thin arms were stretched to their limit. My hands were straining to keep a grip on the ropes and I wasn’t sure what dire consequence would result if I let go. Within a few minutes we began our descent. I pulled on the left rope with all my tiny might when the playboy blew the whistle and we magically landed on the sand without injury. I was eager to jump out of the harness and massage my aching hands but after a minute of shouting and pointing and being directed to move my legs into different holes in the harness, I was back in the air again, this time with Dax as my passenger. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t think my hands could last much longer, but if I let go we might go whipping uncontrollably through the clouds or come crashing to the ground. I held on for dear life and wondered why I was no longer dangling from the harness but instead sitting in it. Then I noticed that one of the two carabiners–the only things keeping me attached to the parachute and from freefalling into the Mediterranean below–was wide open! I mentioned it to Dax and had him check his for good measure. Slowly, cautiously, I removed my right hand from the rope and clipped the device shut wondering how close I had come to disaster.

The rest of the ride was slightly more enjoyable than the first but my hands were still smarting. Another safe landing and I was out of harm’s way, but now it was Tom and Asher’s turn. I quickly turned and yelled to Tom, “I don’t think this is safe for her.” In their usual manner, the playboys were madly strapping the duo in, and I shouted at them to stop. By this time Asher was already crying. Her vest was choking her as the rope was pulling she and Tom out to sea. The playboys ignored me and kept repeating, “It’s safe. It’s safe.” I barked at them again to stop and Tom worked feverishly to free her from the harness. I grabbed her from his arms and 10 seconds later he was gone. “Check your carabiners,” I called as he soared into the sky.

Tom made it back to the ground in one piece, and since Kieran had decided he didn’t want to ride, we were done. Tom handed over the price he had set the day before and was met by challenges and insults from the playboys. They demanded more money, claiming the price had changed since the previous day. He laughed and walked away.

A few nights later the kids got excited for another resort activity, the infamous snake charmer show. Tom and I exchanged smirks when a pudgy, old man in a red satin suit and turban stumbled onto the makeshift stage accompanied by the soulful strains of a New Age composer. He seemed almost drunk as he wobbled and chuckled through his multilingual introduction. His first feat was to snatch a deadly scorpion by the stinger. Trusting that his grip was enough to protect them from its venom, many of the spectators allowed him to run the prehistoric beast across their arms. Some even ended up with it on their heads.

After the scorpion and some slurred jokes, the stars of the show emerged from the charmers’ trunk–not one but three king cobras. The charmer bobbed, weaved, kicked, and prodded, all the time preserving a scant distance between the audience and the toxic reptiles. At one point he swung one of them in the air and pretended to fling it into the audience. Everybody laughed, but few trusted he was really in control of his venomous charges. We wondered if the snakes had somehow been rendered harmless by the charmer or a veterinarian, but any question we had as to their deadly potential were erased when a hapless German tourist wandered across the stage. The charmer kept his cool, but the look in his eyes was panic. What if one of the snakes lunged out and bit this clueless fellow? Based on the charmer’s expression, something quite frightening.

We all breathed a lot easier when the snakes were back in the charmer’s trunk. We had survived our second brush with danger at the resort and weren’t eager for another. Perhaps that’s why Tom and I passed on the magic show a few days later when one of the volunteers ended up with a nail in his stomach. Oops! It’s moments like these that we remember just how lucky we are to live in a country where caution is cool and people who perform with reptiles are licensed.

Technorati Tags: Family travel, Hammamet, Parasailing, Snake charmers, Safety, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Tunisia

Throughout the world we have met traveling and local children, all of them are alike in one big way. Even though they’re alike in many little ways, this is the big one–they want to have fun. While we were in New Zealand, we met a British family who were traveling the world in six months, in Australia we met a local family, Richard and his kids to be precise. There are children everywhere we go. Some we meet invite us to their houses, others the little kids meet and play with for minutes to hours (look back to my post Asher and Her Asian Friends). Children at RSO in India, children at the school in China, children at the school in Cambodia, children at the House of Angels in Romania are all alike: they want to play and have fun.

In Tunisia we had some of my favorite times of the whole trip. In the Sheraton Hammamet, where we were redeeming Dad’s SPG points, we met Eddy, 12 (1 month older than me), Grace, 10, and Max 7 (1 month older than Kieran)on our third day there. They were from England (like most other traveling children we meet) and were in Tunisia for vacation. for a week I think. We met at the pool area in the middle of the day, They were swimming before us and in the pool at the same time as us, but I couldn’t get up the guts to go talk to them. Finally I found the bravery inside me that I needed to go talk to them. I started talking to them about traveling and why we were in Tunisia and why they were in Tunisia and about school and how it is different in the US and England. After talking for awhile with Eddy, he asked if I wanted to play table tennis with him a.k.a. ping pong. There was a ping pong table like thirty feet (10 meters) from the pool, so I said why not.

While I was getting crushed at ping pong, Eddy asked me if I liked real tennis. I was thinking, “Oh my gosh. I love it!!!!” but instead I said, “Yeah, it’s the sport I play at home. Do you play?” He told me that he played too and that he had some rackets in his room. I didn’t even know there was a tennis court, but apparently there was and somehow in a couple of minutes I had a tennis game arranged at 5 o’clock. But our fun ended temporarily when they had to go eat lunch. Eddy, Grace, Max, their parents, Mom, Asher, Kieran and I walked back to our rooms. The Sheraton wasn’t a skyscraper but a bunch of different buildings with like 10 rooms in each scattered around the grounds of the Sheraton. We discovered their rooms were right across the hall from Mom and Dad’s. This was pretty cool because now we could just walk out and go to their room. 5 pm couldn’t come soon enough. After a couple of hours of waiting it was time to play some tennis.

I was pretty rusty at first because of the fact that I hadn’t played in a year, but I slowly progressed to almost where I was before we left the US. The game didn’t fall in my favor The final score was 2 to 6. I was the 2 unfortunately. We walked back to the room with Grace and Max right behind, and bid our farewells because once again it was time for them to eat and have tea. We had arranged to play Crazy Bones later that night after they ate. Kieran and Asher were going to play to so I had to get all my Crazy Bones ready. They came back from dinner and we started playing in our room right awa. We all started with 5 and played if they get knocked over they’re dead (look up Crazy Bones if you don’t know what they are). It started out fine but no one could knock over Eddy’s, so Kieran picked up an apricot and threw it at Eddy’s Crazy Bones. Soon it turned into a situation where Kieran and Asher were throwing the fruit from the welcome bowl. Peaches, apricots, apples flying over head splattering on the wall and floor. It ended with one big splat of a peach that Kieran chucked with all his strength straight down. *SPLAT* It exploded everywhere all over him. Right when he threw it there was a knock at the door. Everything went quiet. There was another knock and then another. I looked through the peep hole and boy, was I relieved to see Eddy, Grace, and Max’s Dad. We could still be in trouble but at least it wasn’t some stranger.

They didn’t get in trouble or anything, but Kieran and Asher did. Lucky for us they didn’t break anything, but there was still smashed fruit all over the floor. But mom was pretty calm about it and didn’t flip out. I’m not saying any more than that because I don’t know how hard it was to clean it up. We were leaving the next day so me and Eddy woke up early to we could get another game in, we thought that this would be our last so we had to play no matter how early, Grace and Max tagged along too because they liked to watch. We started walking to the course and we realized that we had no tennis balls I think it was. So Eddy ran back as quick as he could to get the balls. He ran to catch back up to us. We got to the tennis courts and I realized I had no water, but we didn’t have time for me to run back. I would just have to play with no water, but I was lucky because it wasn’t hot. And I actually got close to winning too. I probably would’ve won if we had finished the game. The final score was 6 to 6, but our hour of time was up so we had to go back to the rooms.

In Mom and Dad’s room they were packing while Kieran and Asher slept. I helped pack a little then I went across the hall to get Eddy to go play some ping pong before we had to leave. We played for a while and then Mom came to get me to get in our cab to the train station where we would ride it to where my Star Wars post happened. I said goodbye to Eddy, and then Mom said ” C’m'on your going to see him again. We’re coming back after the Star Wars stuff”. So it wouldn’t be goodbye forever if we were going back while they were still there. This was good news to the both of us .

4 or 5 days later we got back to the Sheraton at like 9 at night. We got all our bags out of the cabs and payed the drivers and when I looked up the entry stair well there they were–Eddy, Grace, Max, and two more kids that were also staying there. I was so surprised to see them. We were a day early yet they were there waiting like they were expecting us. It turned out that they were playing man hunt and the new kids names were Alex, 9, and Maddy, 6. They had arrived one day before we left the first time. They told me that there two more kids that were in their rooms. Ryan, who was Dax’s age, and Kelsen, 9. We just barely started a game when Eddy’s dad said it was time for them to go to bed. So the game stopped and we went back to our rooms. We were in the same building as last time and our rooms were just a 15 feet away from theirs.

The next day we did everything we could fit into the day. But unfortunately Eddy, Grace, and Max were in Tunis until 5. So I hung out with Ryan until they got back. We talked about the US and England and what we liked to do and it turned out that he liked to play DDR. He showed me this guy on Youtube that was really good at DDR. We also played ping pong which was pretty funny because it somehow turned into heading a soccer ball back and forth on the ping pong table. When Eddy got back we hurried and got the rackets and ran to the tennis courts. Tennis wasn’t the same as the other days though, because every single one of the kids were there including Ryan, and they were running across the court and keeping the balls. We decided it was too hard to play with everyone running around, and just stuck to manhunt. Ryan and Kelsen couldn’t play though because they had to be with their family. So it was just me, Eddy, Grace, Alex, and Max. We played a version where you could run around the whole complex and one team protected the pool table and if they touched an attacker, the attacker was out. The other team had to try and touch the pool table. The teams were Max and I against Eddy, Grace, and Alex. I didn’t know how this was fair since Max was so young, but this is how we played. Max and I actually did pretty well. We won the most rounds somehow.

After five rounds Alex had to leave so we played single person manhunt. We played that you could go anywhere throughout the whole complex and when someone was tagged they had to help the manhunter. Eddy was the manhunter and he got Max first and then me. Together the three of us couldn’t find Grace anywhere. We walked around the whole place trying to find her. We searched for like an hour. We found Alex and asked him to help us and then we ran into Eddy’s dad. He helped us look for her too. Finally we found her at the front behind a wall. How had Eddy not seen her? I watched him look through that area like five times, and she said she had been there the whole time.

After they ate there was a magic show that was pretty strange. We all watched and sat together. It wasn’t very interesting to me until they had all of these volunteers stand in a 3 person wide, 5 person long mass with one big guy in the front who was holding a wood block with a small hole that didn’t go all the way through. One of the ‘magicians’ then put an iron rod that was pretty long in the small hole, and then made the other side push against his throat and then pushed. The wood broke and stabbed the guy in the stomach. The guy was so suprised. Everyone gasped; that wasn’t supposed to happen. I wondered if the guy could sue the magicians. All of us thought that he would.

After the magic show Kieran, Asher, Eddy, Grace, Max, and I went back to the rooms so we could play more Crazy Bones. This time luckily there was no food fight but Grace kept on trying to get Kieran and Asher to throw fruit by putting fruit in front of them. Luckily they weren’t tempted, and I had to throw an apricot at Grace to make her stop. We never got to finish the game though because their dad came because it was time for them to go.

The next day me and Eddy played one more game of tennis and after that it was almost time for us to leave to the airport. Before we left we started picking these little balls off of a tree above the pool table and throwing them at each other. It was pretty fun and some German girls were throwing them at us too. We couldn’t find out their ages but one seemed my age, and the other, Josephine, seemed to be 10 or younger. When Kieran came to the front he had these soap bombs that were bath gel and shampoo mixed up in a small bottle and he and Asher started throwing them at everyone. But soon it was time for us to leave and we took one big last picture (Alex’s mom took the picture because Dad’s camera battery was dead), and said goodbye to everyone for the last time.

Technorati Tags: crazy bones, playing, friends, kids, tennis, toys, Tunis, Tunisia

I was expecting the most of Tunisia, I thought it was going to be a somewhat of a developed country that it was sort of like a mini-France, because it was under French control until not too long ago. Boy was I in for a rude awakening. It turned out to be more like a mini-India, apart from the Hinduism, the cows, the human feces, and the amount of trash everywhere ( there is trash everywhere but not near as much as India). It’s a small nice country, but unfortunately it didn’t meet my expectations until we reached the STAR WARS sets. We were actually going to the set that the first STAR WARS was filmed on, somewhere I only dreamed of going, the planet of Tatooine.

Our STAR WARS tour started in Tunis though we didn’t know it at the time. We saw a funny building that looked upside down. It turned out to be a hotel, but I thought it was more than a building. I knew I had seen it somewhere before, but where could it have been? Maybe the news, or even a movie, but what movie? Then I realized it was the fourth episode of STAR WARS. It looked just like the Jawas’ giant ship that Luke buys C-3PO and R2-D2 off of. The hotel is what inspired George to make the ship in that strange design. We found this out by reading the website www.toysrgus.com that has a section that shows everywhere the Star Wars movies were filmed.

We left Tunis on one of the public transport louages to get to Hammamet where we would redeem dad’s SPG points for some free nights at the Sheraton Hammamet Beach Resort. It was a low level Sheraton, so the rooms weren’t too great, but it sure beat hostels. But because this is a STAR WARS post, not a beach resort post I’ll skip through here and go straight to Tozeur, which we took an 8 hour train to get to from Hamamet. Tozeur is one of the closest cities to the STAR WARS set. It is a small town built by a 10 square kilometer oasis full of palm trees, pomegranate trees, and banana trees, which have an unusual flower that none of us knew about. When the season comes, the bananas emerge out of the flower. It’s from here that we set out in a jeep to the set that served as the small town of Mos Espa, Tatooine. This was a going to be one of the big highlights of the trip for me. I knew it. Just like the Hobbiton was in New Zealand.

We arrived in Tozeur at about 7pm and walked about 500 or more meters (LOL!!! Now instead of miles and feet coming to mind when I think of distances, meters and kilometers come to mind, I just realized that). We went to the nicest hotel in the city first but it was too expensive. It was almost dark so we just went to the closest cheap one, which was a big dive, but to make it seem better we did what we always did in dives to make them seem better, watch our family movie that we love so much, “She’s the Man.” The next day we decided to move to a hotel like 300 meters (there I go in meters again, just know that it’s 3.2 feet to the meter) which for a little more was a little better. Then about an half an hour to an hour after we got settled in our new hotel we got in a horse cart and rode into the oasis. Our driver was a nice man and let me Kieran and Asher in the front with him. He also hopped off and let us steer Sabrina the horse when we got to slow roads. He took us to a farm where he showed us all the fruit trees (that’s where we saw the banana flower) and to an old medina where people still lived. We rode around on Sabrina for an hour and then went back to the hotel where a jeep was supposed to pick us up.

We hired a jeep with 4×4 from the hotel to go out to ‘Mos Espa’ that was scheduled to come at 2 pm. We only got an hour on Sabrina because we were supposed to go back for about 30 minutes before the jeep came. If we would’ve known that we would still be waiting at 3 o’clock, then we probably would’ve fit in the Chak Wak museum that is all about ancient life, Kieran was devastated the most about this, because he really liked the flyer for it and thought it would be fun to go to. At about 3:10 a new guy came to the desk and instead of telling us every 2 minutes that it would be 5 more minutes until the jeep arrived, he told us that it would be better if we went at 4 o’clock since it wouldn’t be so hot then (it’s in the desert). My Mom and Dad were mad the we wasted that much time in the lobby, but Dax, Kieran, Asher, and I weren’t too sad because while we were in the lobby we were making comics. (It’s a newfound hobby for Dax and me. We like to make funny little comics for the little kids.) So we went up to our room and waited for the reception to call and tell us that the jeep was there.

They called our room when the jeep arrived and we all hurried down the stairs to get in. Since we were going into the desert, we brought lots of water. We thought that the jeep would at least have AC, but it didn’t. It was pretty hot in the car, so we rolled down all the windows. That cooled us down a little but it also let a lot of dust in the car. It was about 40 kilometers to the STAR WARS site and most of that was on sand roads, so it took a while to get there. The driver also went over ledges and things that weren’t part of the road for our entertainment. Every time he went over a bump everyone would fly off their seat and bump into each other because the car was so cramped. There were 8 people in there and I don’t know what one of them’s job was. There was the driver and some other guy that was up with him that wasn’t a tourist. I think he was supposed to be our guide but he didn’t speak very much English. The rest of us were cramped in the back two rows.

The drive there was pretty amazing. There was a paved road the first 10 or so kilometers but the rest was all sand and dirt road. There were these crystals everywhere that glittered and sparkled in the sun, so we we made sure that we stopped and picked some up. We also made a quick stop at Camel Rock, which was a big rock that was in the shape of a camel, hence the name camel rock. Near Camel Rock there was a little shop that sold desert roses like every other shop in southern Tunisia. They’re crystallized water and sand that make strange shapes with lots of semi-circles sticking out.

When we left Camel Rock we entered an area that instead of mud hills had sand dunes. To get to the dunes we had to drive down one more big ledge and ride on one more wall. It seemed like it almost tipped the jeep over over one of the dunes. I could see something that looked like STAR WARS, so I asked the guide or whatever he was, “STAR WARS?” He replied, “No STAR WARS. STAR WARS dere.” He pointed just over the dune right ahead of us. I got really excited, I was actually going to walk around the set where they filmed STAR WARS. We had already driven through the area where they did the pod racing. In the bumpy car I actually felt like I was in the pod race. We took the dune head on, but unfortunately our car wasn’t as strong as the car ahead of us, so it couldn’t move when we were almost to the top. The driver had to reverse back down the dune and go around some of it. He found a part that wasn’t as high and put the pedal to the metal. We made it to the top of the dune, and when I looked through the windshield I could see Mos Espa! There it was–the real set that they filmed STAR WARS in!

The jeep that made it up before us was stopped and all the people from the car were out taking pictures. But we decided that it was too windy for Dad’s camera because sand would get in it, the same with the little kids’ eyes. We drove down the other side of the dune very carefully, especially at the bottom. “Nice and easy, nice and easy,” I was thinking to myself, because if we went too fast we would get stuck in the sand. Luckily we made it down safely and about 40 meters ahead was the set. There it was, right in front of me. Now I was about to burst with excitement. Right when we stepped out of the car we were swarmed with children and old men alike, all trying to sell us things. None of us can stand this. We know they’re just trying to make a living, but they are so pushy! If they are selling a hat, they say, “Free gift, free gift!” and put the hat on our head. When you say thank you and walk away, they get mad and ask for money. But we have had that all over the world and learned how to respond. You can push the “gift” away and then walk or run away. If they drop the “gift” in your arms, you can pull them up so it falls (if it’s not breakable) or just put it on the ground and walk away. When we finally made it through the salespeople to the set, Kieran and I darted off to see everything.

Everything was pretty beat up, but there it was! Just like it was just like in the movie! There were the pillars, the doors, and everything else! Because everything was beat up and the paint worn away, you find out what they made everything out of. The weird AC doorbell-like things outside the house are just taken apart computers. The houses were made out of a little bit of plywood, stucco, and chicken wire. The pillar electronic things out in the open are just made out of wood, and the inside of the doorways that have all the little rectangles on them are made out of foam. Kieran and I wandered around pretty much every part of it, going in almost every house, touching everything on the way. In one house the back wall fell so broken stucco was everywhere. Kieran and I snagged four small pieces of stucco from the sand and went on to another house. While we were in one of the houses, we heard Dad yelling at us to get in the car so we ran back trying not to get sand in our eyes from all the wind. Dad told us that we had to leave even though we still hadn’t seen everything. Kieran started to cry because we missed the back and the left side, and he still wanted to see it, but Dad couldn’t stand all the old men and children following him and by now the wind was really strong so sand was blowing everywhere.

Our ‘guide’ told us that we could have 10 more minutes to see the rest, so dad took us out for like three and came back. In that time we were able to see the back part of the set and find a small desert rose in one of the huts. When we got back Kieran was still about to cry because he didn’t see the left half. I was pretty upset too, so Mom took us because the kids and old men bothered Dad more than anyone else. We made it over to the left half where there were three jeeps of tourist walking around. We managed to squeeze into the rest of the huts which were all very cool (cool and a cool temperature too). One had some charcoal in it and there was hundreds of names on the wall. Kieran and I decided to write our namesup there too, so now our names are up there for us if we come back. There was one really creepy guy that followed us into the hut with the names and kept trying to put a hat on Kieran’s head. This guy creeped Mom out a lot so she told us to leave. When I tried to leave the man blocked the door so I couldn’t leave, then he put a hat on my head (my head has itched ever since). I threw the hat back at him and as he was catching the hat I ran out the door and caught up to Mom. I looked behind and he was still following us, so we started to walk faster. Finally he gave up on us and went for some French tourist. As we were walking by one of the pillars to get to the jeep, I kicked something metal and it flew up. I bent down to pick it up and it turned out to be a screw off of the pillar. I put in my pocket for a keepsake, Kieran also find a keepsake, larger than mine though. It’s a block of wood that came off one of the houses or a pillar. We had seen it all and had our keepsakes in our pockets, so we hopped in the car and drove on a bumpy road to a small town named Nefta. It was right by the oasis, and we went to a ledge where there were palm trees for miles (or kilometers). After Nefta we were all pretty tired so we went back to the hotel.

The next day we took a louage to Matmata, the place where they filmed the Lars residence. The road there was amazing. There were these salt flats that looked like oceans. It was so white that this abandoned bus in the distance looked like it was floating. We got to Matmata around noon and found a hotel to stay in about 2 hours later. We hiked down a hill down from the louage station to get down to an empty tourist information and from there Dax and Mom scoped out some other hotels. We decided that we were definitely going to stay in a cave hotel, but we didn’t know which one. They both weren’t very clean, but one was cleaner than the other. The less clean one was the one where they filmed STAR WARS. After Mom and Dax got back, Dad, Kieran, Asher and I went to look at both of them. Mom chose to let me and Kieran decide where to stay because we cared about staying in the STAR WARS hotel. Dad, Kieran, Asher and I all agreed on the STAR WARS cave because it had an outlet, which the other didn’t, and it had the place where they filmed STAR WARS, which of course the other didn’t. Even though it was kind of dirty, we managed to sleep in our sleep sacks even with the brown and yellow stains on the sheets and pillow covers alike. I thought that it was worth it because we were actually in Luke Skywalker’s house. Right outside our beat up broken door and 50 feet down the hall was the big center room of the house. Even though I didn’t like the dinner or the breakfast there, I think it was truly worth it because now every time I watch STAR WARS episode 4 I can say, “Hey I’ve been there!”

If you aren’t in Tunisia you can also get good replica’s at this website www.masterreplicas.com

Technorati Tags: Family travel, Hammamet, Mos Espa, Ong Jemal, Star Wars, Star Wars locations, Tatooine, Tozeur, Tunisia

When you quiz round the world travelers, their itineraries usually contain many of the same core countries and regions: Southeast Asia, India, and Australia are the most common with Africa and South America coming in just below (unless you’re in the Pacific Rim, the southern hemisphere really drives RTW airfare costs up). Eastern Europe is less common, though not unheard of, as is North Africa, our current location. We’ve met others who have hit Egypt, Morocco, and even Ethiopia, but we don’t know any one else who has included the small country of Tunisia in their RTW plan. There are probably many reasons for this: 1) cost of getting here–unless you’re coming on a package tour from Germany or France, there’s no rock bottom way by boat or air from Europe, and overland travel requires riding the highways of Libya or Algeria, either impossible or inadvisable at present; 2) its wonders are overshadowed by the pyramids of Egypt to the east and the more famous souks of Morocco to the west; and 3) many people have never even heard of it.

As itinerary master, I was turned on to Tunisia for 3 reasons (there’s great comfort in threes): 1) Carthage and Hannibal; 2) Star Wars (all 6 episodes); and 3) it would allow us to get back to North Africa without having to endure Egypt, a place that strained Tom and I to our limits in 1999. Much like Turkey, Tunisia boasts a western-friendly, secular regime and is therefore less intimidating for us than its Islamist neighbors. On the flip side, as a former colony of France, its official languages are French and Arabic, both tongues that elude us. (Between Tom and I we can get by in Japanese, Russian, and German, and we’ve learned a little Mandarin and Spanish for the trip. Both big boys study Spanish. Alas, no Francais.) Language barriers have yet to deter us from visiting a place, so we decided to make Tunis, Tunisia’s capital, the fifth of the six stops on our round the world tickets.

We arrived at the airport around midnight, after yet another connection through Paris (now our most visited city of the trip). We didn’t know what awaited us outside the airport doors but hoped the people would be friendly and the weather temperate. In a scene out of India, a herd of taxi drivers swarmed around us, grabbing our bags and shouting loudly in an attempt to win our business for the night. A seasoned handler of overly aggressive cab drivers, Tom swung his arms and in one Matrixlike motion recovered all the bags and silenced all the drivers. “You,” he proclaimed pointing at the driver of a dilapidated yellow station wagon. “15 dinar to the Sheraton.” The other drivers muttered, yelled, and threw up their hands at the great offense they had just been dealt and refused to clear the way for our cab once we had climbed inside. This was an inauspicious introduction to Tunisia, but if you were to judge a country by the cab drivers that frequent its airports, you might think the whole world a hostile, dishonest place. We soon learned that these drivers were the exception in this humble Mediterranean nation.

The next morning we visited the medina, or ancient walled city. No sooner had our driver deposited us on the street than I was stopped on the sidewalk by a young woman with her son. “I saw you on Oprah,” she exclaimed. “You did?” I asked. “Yes, you were in South Africa. You’re welcome to Tunisia.” I could tell that she meant it. We spent the next few minutes chatting about her country and discussing which locations we should visit. “Thank you very much. Please enjoy Tunisia,” she said as we parted. Imagine that, she was thanking me when she had been the one to extend such kindness. This could be our kind of country, I thought.

Just so we didn’t get big heads, a man in the medina’s busiest souk decided to set us straight. I constantly quiz Tom on the whereabouts of his wallet and remind him whenever we enter a new city of the hotspots for pickpockets. He’s usually prepared but on this day, he let his guard down just a bit. I was ahead of him by about 10 feet, shepherding the little kids. Suddenly he shouted ahead to me, “That guy just unzipped my camera bag.” I spun around to find three men wedged between us in the jam packed marketplace. “This one,” I shouted back, pointing to a tall, skinny man trying to take a quick left down an alley. I was ready to body block him with all my 90 pound might because frankly I’m fed up of being viewed as tourist prey by thieves. “Non, monsieur,” he pouted holding up his hands to show they were free of loot. Tom performed a quick inventory and verified that the important stuff was all still in place and called back, “I don’t think he got anything.” I let him pass. It wasn’t until four or five days later when we went to charge the spare camera battery that we realized it was missing. What the thief could do with it, we couldn’t imagine, but it marked the second time in nine months we’ve been snookered by thieves. (The first time was by a shifty cab driver in Xian, China.)

We left the souk unphased, figuring we had outwitted the thief, and found a fun cafe where we could have our first Tunisian lunch. We quenched our thirst with delicious lemonade and got really confused when our pizza arrived covered in canned tuna–a local specialty for which we were unprepared. As we ate, we noticed a group of women at the table next to us who seemed unusually interested in us. We started clearing the table to leave, and one of them spoke up, “Excuse me. Were you on the Oprah Winfrey Show a few weeks ago?” Now we were beginning to feel like celebrities.

Again we had a lovely but brief visit with the three women, all instructors at a local university. They explained that many at the school watch Oprah to improve their English and that our episode had aired just one week earlier. Tom was eager to hear whether our voices had been dubbed or whether we had appeared with subtitles. The answer: Arabic subtitles. As with the woman on the street, these lovely ladies extended us a warm welcome to their country and thanked us profusely for speaking with them.

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the streets of Tunis, finding the ever necessary supermarket, and soaking up the Tunisian sunshine. Any time someone looked at us longer than usual or whispered to a companion we wondered if we were once again being recognized. It was a handy way to remind the kids they should always be on their best behavior, but then we remembered that we’re a traveling circus and draw attention to ourselves wherever we are. (If you know Asher, you understand what I mean.)

Grateful for the warmth we had been shown, we drifted off to sleep in our Sheraton beds hopeful that the rest of our days in Tunisia would be as good as our first.

Technorati Tags: Family travel, Medina, Oprah, Round-the-world, Royal Orchid Sheraton, RTW, Tunis, Tunisia