December 25 and 26, 2009. The transfer.
On Christmas Day, all the participants stayed near Marseille to embark the next day for Tunisia.
December 27, 2009. From Tunis capital to Hammamet. Transition stage.
The trip has been a perfect mix between tourism and adventure. Yes, I know that all-terreners are more of the Cookie Monster style: “sand, sand..”. All adventure and the foreigners in reverse, all tourism. If anything has been perfectly demonstrated on this trip, it is that you can do both at the same time. And very well both. For this reason, the first thing was to visit the beautiful coastal town of Sidi Bou Said, which combines white and blue, so Moorish, of which there are clear reminiscences in the houses of many villages in Ciudad Real, although in the case of Sidi Bou Said, the blue is completely light blue, while the one in Ciudad Real, or that of Chaouén, in Morocco, it’s darker. There is a point of Mediterranean influence in the colour, which invites us to taste fish and seafood in the port of Tunis, La Goulette, before heading to Hammamet.
There we were awaiting an excellent papier-mâché castle hotel, as in fairy tales, or Gaudí’s Casa Botines in León (sorry for the comparative sacrilege). Near the hotel there are very cheap fixed-price shops. So you can do without the Souk, if you don’t like haggling. This is something that someone who is not a fan of shopping; but in this case, it’s worth it… although it is better to wait until the last day, because we will return to Hammamet and on the way many potholes and jumps await us. Bufff!!
December 28, 2009. From Hammamet to Gafsa. Culture in abundance.
On the way is Kairouan, the fourth holy city of Islam, after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. It is worth seeing the Grand Mosque and strolling through the Medina. You don’t really need a guide, because it’s not labyrinthine and has a Moorish flavour, reminiscent of Arcos de la Frontera, in the white villages of Cadiz. The guide charges little; although it takes you on commission, I mean stores, as always. In the Grand Mosque you have to pay; although no one controls. That is…
Also on the road is Sbeitla. It is not Pompeii; but almost. The ruins are very well preserved, as they belong to the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine), which as you know lasted until the end of the fifteenth century. In this case, Sbeitla, the ancient Sufetula, was sacked and (fortunately) abandoned by the Arabs in the seventh century. The desert took the place of the lava of Vesuvius. Hence its impressive conservation, especially of mosaics and baths. And in view of Sbeitla, all that was left was to sleep in Gafsa, crossing the Kasserine Pass, where Rommel fought one of his most epic battles. In fact, Rommel owes the nickname “desert fox” to the Fenek (as Territori) because of his ease of moving in the dark of night.
The hotel in Gafsa, like all the other hotels, was of a very good standard -thanks again, Territori-, although in honor of the truth it must be said that in the hotels of Tunisia you do not eat like in those of Morocco.
December 29, 2009. From Gafsa to Tozeur. The dance begins.
Between Gafsa and Tamerza, the historic image of Rommel appears again. After crossing a stony area, we enter a narrow, winding slope track, which the Marshal built to facilitate the invasion of Algeria. And from there to the mountain oases, starting with the Mides canyon, more than 30 meters deep. The place is intoxicating, so it is not surprising that quite a few films have been shot in the area. Fans of street stalls can buy desert roses, fossils and minerals.
From Mides to La Gran Cascada, which is not big at all, except in a country where dry land predominates, with a north full of olive trees and a south of palm groves.
I already said that we are in an area of movie sets, so the next step is to approach Tatouinne, remember? The town of The Phantom Menace, from Star Wars.
Next to it, some dunes, which serve as an appetizer, for the hard desert stages of the following two days, in Douz. It is the contact with the sand, necessary to gain experience, for what will come later.
December 30, 2009. Tozeur-Douz. From the salt lake to the desert.
The excursion to the salt lake – at this time of year dried up – of Chott El Jerid is beautiful. It is one of the few places in the world that can evoke the unparalleled beauty of the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia. The comparison is inevitable, although Bolivia wins in that, with its immense salt desert of 10,500 km2 – imagine a square of 100×100 km. It evokes memories of another unforgettable trip. We had a lot of fun with the bus bogged down -and never better said- in the salt of Chott El Jerid and with the jokes that Albert rode, pretending that we were dragging him with Josep’s KXR. Many family photos, with the cars on the white of the salt.
And from the salt, to the sand. First foray into the Douz Desert. That was more than a warm-up and more than the Diploma in Dunes in Morocco with which we all arrived on the trip, including our magnificent and beautiful co-pilots. He was approaching his bachelor’s degree.
We didn’t know what awaited us. Albert saw that the group was responding and began to plot a long search for waypoints, for the next day.
December 31, 2009. Douz-Douz. Desert and roses to the rhythm of Rock.
Said and done. We got into the sand and little did we suspect that it would be 10:30 a.m. and 110 a.m. Km.de pure desert, with no time to stop to eat. Albert was looking for a military post, which we could not reach, because it was getting dark and it was not a question of running out of the grapes from the Reveillón.
On the way, everything, constant seesaws of dunes, hooks, slings, winches, impossible angles -at least for my G. Vitara- and yet I climbed decisively, making use of inertia and goat jumps. Also desert roses. We took a few, collected by us. A good indicator that where we were, very few people arrive. I think we passed the Bachelor’s Degree with flying colors and we are very close to the Master’s Degree, which is only completed by the intrepid who go down to the Great Erg. The Doctorate, I’m afraid it’s called Libya; But this is no longer my trip, not because I doubt that I can -with another car, of course-, but because my travel appetites seek a more balanced combination between adventure and culture. For me, the 2009/2010 Tunisian Reveillon from Territori4x4 is the perfect trip. Josep and Isabel will go to Libya, I’m sure; I don’t know if with his KXR or with an HDJ80, of which Albert is a determined fan.
I suppose he is right. In those payments there were mostly Toyotas, with a predominance of the HDJ80 and 100, dotted with the occasional handful of Mitsubishis, Patrol GR, Jeep Wrangler, Land Rover Defender and almost stops counting, except for single units of other cars such as Joan’s Mercedes G. Grand Vitara I didn’t see more than mine in all of Tunisia and of course there was not a single Suzuki in the Douz desert. My angles ended up shattered in the form of plastics of the front and rear bumpers; But the car is hard and behaved wonderfully. He passed through the same place as the others, to the point that a colleague exclaimed that if he had not seen him, he would not have believed him.
There were really no incidents, except for the typical hooked ones and the occasional flat tire of the KXR, whose gearbox developments forced to abuse the first length. And that, with the wheels turned, well… At night, the Reveillón, belly dancing included, was waiting for us. And it cava. Josep and Isabel came very prepared, with 13 bottles of Reserva de la Familia in the fridge of the Toyota. That’s the good thing about going with gourmets, as are Joan and Yesenia, with Cvne a lot and the delicatessen of El Espinalet. I promise I won’t forget it.
January 1, 2010. Douz-Matmata. Desert tracks to the rhythm of Swing.
The road from Douz to Ksar Ghilane is full of tracks that have nothing to do with those in Morocco. Sometimes they are reminiscent of the hamada; but they are something else, they are interspersed with pure and hard sand and with pieces of desert that invade them. It is a track-dune, a mix between hamada and erg, which little by little becomes a dune of soft sand, pure erg. Easy to get hooked, as did the French, whom the Catalan knights helped, without later obtaining reciprocity.
The long 4×4 stretch was not nearly as hard as the one the day before, so other types of cars and even trucks were already visible. We even find two Suzukis, a previous generation Vitara and a Jimny, which is a much more intrepid car than it might seem at first glance. The road ended at an abandoned fort of the French Foreign Legion, built on an old Roman fortress, from which the oasis of Ksar Ghilane could be seen.
A seesaw of sand takes us in single file to the oasis, with a respectable distance between the cars, which need inertia in the fine sand.
Ksar Ghilane is an oasis that rises from underground, with hot springs, which even form a playful outdoor pool. A must stop to have a beer, in a luxurious environment and regain strength for the trip along a road to the hotel in Matmata, of excellent troglodyte imitation, where we would arrive late at night.
January 2, 2010. Matmata-Hammamet. New transition to culture.
Matmata is a unique setting. Its troglodyte houses, imitated – and very well, by the way – by the rooms of our hotel, are something unique. Nothing to do with what you can see in Logroño, or in Setenil, to mention again one of the white villages of Cádiz. So unique is Matmata, that quite a few sequences of Raiders of the Lost Ark, or the first film of the Star Wars saga, were filmed there.
He said that they do not resemble the Spanish cave houses, because they are carved into a rocky wall, while the Tunisian cave houses of Matmata are carved on the perimeter of a cylinder dug into the ground, in the center of which there is something that looks like a well; but that it is really a cistern, destined to collect rainwater, so scarce in those payments.
From Matmata to El Jem the road is dangerous, because it is one lane on each side and very, very busy. Be careful, then. Everything is picturesque, from the landscape that is becoming marine, the olive tree that reappears and the unusual gas stations, consisting of boys with fuel cans, at the foot of the road. Until in the middle of it all, the amphitheatre of El Jem rises, majestic, defying the centuries.
The monument was built in the third century, with a capacity for 35,000 spectators. It is the largest in Africa and comparable to the Colosseum in Rome.
And finally, the last shopping and a restful night in Hammamet. You have to spend the dinars, because the next day, in the port of La Goulette we will only be able to buy ceramics and little else.
January 3 and 4, 2010. Long drive home.
The Ferry again. We started the return trip together by road, after an endearing farewell when we passed customs and little by little, on the highway, each of us went our own way. For our colleagues, Catalonia is close; but the beauty and I had to travel to Madrid -we live there-. It was a very good idea to stay overnight in Platja d’Aro, where fortunately we have a stop. You leave customs quite late and this trip, which we made in one go on the way out, becomes too long on the way back.
Happy New Year! and Congratulations, Territori! Thanks to you and our wonderful adventure companions, we have enjoyed an unforgettable trip, organized to perfection.
