Category: Tunisian Food

After passing through the Chott el Jerid and Douz, we headed up into the hills. It seems there's really not much to see, just rolling terrain.

Until you realize a couple of yards away, dug into a large pit in the ground is something like this.

The area is called Matmata and these are commonly known as "troglodyte" villages. These craters are quite amazing, with quarters built into the sides of the crater and sometimes linked by tunnels.

According to Ben there are about 50 of these "villages" left, many leave for towns and more modern homes with things like A/C and such. I don't blame them, really. This looks like a fairly spartan and tough way to live.

According to what I read, people thought the folks who came out of these mountains to work on the olive fields in the villages were part of nomadic tribes that travelled the region. It was not until 1967, when the area was flooded after 22 straight days of rain, that the villages sent representatives to ask for aid that people finally knew of these villages.

Several of these villages are open to the public and this was one of them. I did feel a bit uncomfortable….entering people's homes and all that, but this is the way they can support themselves and perhaps preserve their way of like a bit longer. There's no admission, you just leave some dinar in a basket….most of the visitors leave a dinar or two. We put ten in the basket and the woman there asked us to come back in. She gave us some bread they make and then told the Missus to try Her hand at grinding some of the grain with one of the older women….who I was told was in her 80's!!!!

The Missus told me that it took some effort to work the grinder and this woman was pretty strong.

We were finally seeing a good number of tourists…..and then stopped at another site, a former troglodyte village that's now a hotel called Sidi Driss. Was this where we were staying the night? No……but I'm sure many of you will know why so many were stopping here…..

Yes, it's the Lars dining room……

This pretty much seals it….

There were literally bus loads of tourists stopping here. It was somewhat disconcerting….. we'd seen so much in Tunisia, with nary a tourist in sight, and here there were hundred of them wanting their photo taken with plywood facades….. Oh well, pop culture and all that, right?

We turned back from here and headed back toward Douz, making a turn to a pretty rough stretch of road halfway back. We actually came to some areas where you really did need a four-wheel drive. Eventually, we stopped at a little palmeraie. The place really had a sort of "you're not in Kansas anymore" look. There were encampments with simple shacks and tent set-ups. This was Ksar Ghilane, at the edge of the Grand Erg Oriental ("Great Eastern Sand Sea"), the Sahara. Ksar means something like fort and outside of the oasis, there is an ancient Roman fort named Tisavar which was part of the Lines Tripolitanus defense line a couple of kilometers away. The fort was actually used in the Second World War by General Leclerc during his campaign in Tunisia.

Ksar Ghilane was our stop for the night, but we weren't staying in any of those shacks ot simple tents…..our accommodation was at the Pansea . We were told these were "five-star" tents…..not that I knew what a five-star tent was supposed to be like. We'd soon find out…..

The tents were set-up in clusters…we entered and were surprised…full king size bed, decent lighting, lounge area, shower and toilet….and what we thought was the best A/C we had the entire trip!

Another thing we quickly noticed was how fine th sand was here….it would get into anything. I still had sand in my shoes and bags after we returned from our trip…..several weeks later!

Down the road a bit, you can stop by and even swim in the hot spring that feeds this palmeraie. The water is pretty warm and knowing what grows in warm water….well, nuff said, right?

A few yards further was the Sahara. Now after really enjoying riding camels in Douz, we had Ben arrange for the same here. The sand of the Grand Erg Oriental is a striking red….perhaps you'll remember it from the beginning scenes of the movie The English Patient. It'sreally like that….I can only speak to the beginning of the film. I could never bring myself to make it through even a fourth of it. Man, talk about a slllooooow movie.

I've done quite a bit over just the last couple of years, but for some reason, this is right up there with all of them. The desert is just plain beautiful. We stopped and walked over and around the dunes while the camels rested. I'd been told, but never noticed until now; when resting under normal conditions, camels do face toward the sun!

 I'm not going to bore you with a zillion photos of red sand dunes, but there is something strangely mesmerizing about watching a light breeze lift the fine sand of the Sahara……building the next dune, or perhaps just getting into someones shoes.

There was an Asian couple with us, the guy was Taiwanese and the young lady Japanese. The young lady looked like she was being tortured and was obviously terrified of the sun as she was wrapped like a mummy! She kept trying to get sand out of…well everywhere it seemed. Meanwhile, once the camels stopped, the guy just zipped right past us and was running up and down dunes like he'd hit nirvana! It was quite funny.

At about a hundred wards or so before we got back to camp, the wind picked up, the sky got dark, and sand started whipping everywhere. Ben had been waiting for us and told us…"sandstorm…."

Watching things turn on a dime was awe inspiring. We watched the camels huddle together for comfort.

Of course, it wouldn't have been fun being out there in the middle of things when this occurred.

We got back to our tent, showered and freshened up, and went for a walk around the area. The Pansea actually had built a "faux" Ksar tower, which we would take full advantage of later on that evening.

Dinner was, of course, one of those all too standard buffets…this one was especially poor, but considering where we were, it was expected. There was a desert race group from France and they attacked the buffet like a pack of hungry wolves fighting over the last drum stick.

A couple of them were also pretty cheap dates and seemed like they were pretty ripped after two glasses of wine…go figure.

The main buffet strategy was to stay away from proteins…most are terribly bad and keep with the vegetables and stuff like mechouia. It was also nice that in Tunisia, you could get a decent bottle of wine for pretty cheap…..under ten bucks at times!

After dinner, I picked up a bottle of beer at the bar and the Missus and I climbed the stairs up the Ksar and looked at all the stars….you could see them clearly since there wasn't any light to interfere.

We both slept well and as usual got up really early, before the sun. Though we really wouldn't be able to see the sunrise, we still hiked up the tower. This is what one of those clusters of tens look like at 530 in the morning.

The sun was coming up and after breakfast we'd be on the last leg of this private tour. Though our days were full, time sure seemed to be flying by.

Sorry there wasn't much food in this post. I do appreciate you reading!

Man, it had been a full day….our morning started at the crack of dawn, with a walk through Kairouan's Medina and some "real" brik for breakfast. After packing up, we met Ben and we toured the Great Mosque, the Medina, and bought some makroud to bring home. We then headed to the ruins of Sufetula outside Sbeitla and had lamb on the side of the road. It was getting close to dusk when we completed the last leg of our drive….man, I bet Ben was bushed, but he didn't show it at all. Driving up the hill to our hotel, the Tozeur location of the El Mouradi chain, I noticed quite a few abandoned resort/hotel properties, things weren't doing too well with regards to tourism after the revolution it seems.

The town of Tozeur is the largest city right before the Chott el-Jerid, the vast 5000 square kilometer great salt lake that we would cross to get to the city of Douz, then Ksar Ghilaine and the Sahara. Like almost all cities and town in the area, Tozeur sprung up around an Oasis, which before the advent of tourism provided the main means of work in Tozeur, farming.

The El Mouradi in Tozeur was perfectly fine, in fact, if you took into account that we were, by most definitions visiting a strip of almost desert in the middle of two large salt lakes…..this is not quite what you think your accommodations would look like.

 Of course, dinner and breakfast were included…..the food here was actually better than at Le Kasbah and we started getting into a habit of having some of the local wine, most of it very light with dinner. Tunisia is a Muslim country, but while alcohol consumption in public is frowned upon, years of French rule has ingrained the wine culture here.

After dinner, the Missus just had to get Her constellation app back out and walk around staring, not at the sky, but at Her iPhone…..

The next morning, we got up very early as we usually do and the Missus went for a swim while I checked through emails. We found out that the restaurant actually opened at 5am….I found out that folks heading back to Tunis left really early in the morning. Ben met us at exactly 8, we jumped in the all-terrain vehicle and headed off. Today was going to be an "easy day"…..

We were headed out to the very popular Mountain Oases (I just found out that Oases is the plural of Oasis – you learn something everyday). I loved this sign by the side of the road.

Heading west, you'll soon see mountains arise from the barren landscape, then a swatch of green. This is Chebika.

Soon you pass square looking buildings…..this is "New" Chebika which was built after a huge flood in 1969 wiped out the original Berber village up the hill. We arrived at the entrance to "Old Chebika" where a ton of cars and SUVs were parked, with a bunch of souvenir, coffee shops, and restaurants were clustered. This looked like a big tourist mess, something we hadn't run into since we arrived in Tunisia. Ben introduced us to a rotund and jolly gentleman named Mohammed…..who is born and raised in Chebika. With Mohammed we were able to go off the standard tourist trail leading to the spring that fed the oasis…..

 There were some tight squeezes and some rather slippery steep sections, but the effort was worth it.

Because the sun shines directly on the oasis in Chebika, with the two mountains walling off the palmeraie, the oasis has earned the arabic name of Qasr el-Shams, which means "Castle of the Sun". One can easily see how it earned that name.

You could see the ruins of the old village clearly, with the new village in the background from here.

After making our way back down, we walked down the trail and to the spring which is the source off all of this…….which was surprisingly modest.

All of this, the birds singing, the frogs croaking, the dates from the palm tress, came from this little pulse of water flowing from the ground. It was humbling experience for the both of us. We've always heard the phrase "water is life", but never had it hit home like it did here.

After making our way back to our vehicle, Ben told us we'd go all the way to Mides first, since that's usually the last stop for tourists and it wouldn't be quite a busy when we arrived. Mides is a small oasis village, just a kilometer from the Algerian border. When we stopped Ben displayed his cellphone…he was getting hits from Algerian cell towers. As we stopped in the small palmeraie to take some photos, we heard a chorus of "clop-clop-clop" coming from down the road…soon enough we could see a shepherd and his sheep headed toward us.

It was really neat…..not even a look in our direction as they walked past us.

The view of Mides, perched above two gorges is quite dramatic.

The village here was also abandoned after the flood of 1969. If some of this looked familiar, I'm told the gorges were used in the movie the English Patient…..unfortunately, I've never been able to sit through the whole movie, so I can't tell you which scene it was.

The gorges also provided protection for the village….though not from flooding.

We then headed back and stopped at Tamerza, which was a rather modern looking city with ruins of the old village a bit east of the new town. We stopped at one of the man-made waterfalls for a quick look.

Heading back to Tozeur, we stopped at the public market and the medina….most of the action was occurring outside the public market as most of the stall inside the market had already closed for the day.

By this time, Ben had kind of figured out that we were interested in food….thus, for our lunch, he took us to a place that served….well, this.

The name of the place was Restaurant de la Republique and Ben told me he usually eats here when in town. Looking over the menu, the did have Dromadaire on the menu in several forms and also had it available today.

So why not, right?

The Missus ordered the Steak de Dromadaire, I ordered Brochettes (kebabs).

As you can see, it's pretty dry stuff. Also, tough…and did I mentioned pretty mild in flavor?

Not a big deal, unlike donkey or cuy, not something I really want to have again…..

After lunch, Ben drove us to Tozeur's huge palmeraie. Depending who you talk to there are between 200,000 (guide books) and 600,000 (folks in Tozeur) palm trees in the oasis of Tozeur. It was pretty amazing, driving through all those trees. In the palmeraie, it felt almost humid. In addition to all the date palms, we saw figs and other plants and trees.

There are over 200 springs pumping water into this area. A very complex system of equitable irrigation and conservation is used. That system was designed in the 13th century and is still used today, by the man whose statue you see to the right, Ibn Chabbat, a mathematician. Pretty amazing stuff.

It was getting pretty hot and Ben dropped us back at the El Mouradi. The place was pretty empty; I think the afternoon sun had chased people indoors and many were probably still on tours.

The pool area had some of the best wifi reception and it seemed like a good idea to head to the bar and buy a nice bottle of wine, which we had along with some kindly provided olives poolside.

I even finished a post while sitting poolside having a nice light, fruity, and crisp glass of Tunisian Muscat.

After a nap, as is our habit, we headed off to dinner early……we tend to sit in the same area of the restaurant, as strange as that may seem.

It was again the usual suspects for dinner, though the mechouia here wasn't too bad, especially when we poured over a nice amount of the local olive oil.

We had also learned that the most popular brand of wine in Tunisia was Magon, named after the Carthaginian Agronomist Magon, who wrote his famous works on wine making during the time of the Phoenicians. It was a decent bottle, but we were finding that we enjoyed the crisp blancs more as they tended to go better with the food in Tunisia.

After dinner, we took a walk, then drifted off……we would need our rest!

Thanks for reading!

 

Buoyed by our early morning visit to the Medina, we were excited to see what the day held out for us. As would be the norm, our driver/guide Ben was perfectly on time. This morning's agenda included a visit to The Mosque of Uqba, otherwise known as the Great Mosque. Considered to be the holiest Islamic site in North Africa and the fourth most holy in Islam, it is both impressive, yet quite understated at the same time. The walls and buttresses are quite imposing.

While we waited for someone to open the mosque up for us, I noticed that some of the buttresses were strangely bent and none of them really matched. Ben told us that many of these were brought from other sites….roman ruins and places like El Djem.

There's an understated grandness to the place. The courtyard look huge in the early morning sun and the minaret soaring over a hundred feet over the mosque.

On the South end, the dome of the portico catches your eye.

The mosque styles here are totally different from what we had got used to seeing in Turkey. But they are no less beautiful.

Since we're not muslim, we aren't allowed into the prayer room. But we were able to view it from the doorway.

Notice the wood topping the pillars. That's because they are of different sizes. These were brought here from places like Carthage and the soon to be seen in an upcoming post, Sbeitla.

As we left the mosque, Ben introduced us to a nice young man who would be our guide through the Medina. We really enjoyed this…..unlike the very touristy…..or to say it like Ben does, "touristic", the medina in Kairouan seemed to be a very functional medina. The winding roads, some of which were fairly wide, housed a number of homes and mosques. There seemed to be quite a few families living here.

We passed many fruit and vegetable stands along the way.

 Along the way little details were pointed out to us. Like the "Hand of Fatima" on the doors. You can tell how many families lived in back of these doors by the number of "hands" on the door.

We were also pointed to the different door knockers on each door. Each was indicated for different family members. You could tell who was at the front door based on the knock.

We got to sample some Berber bread…..

During our breakfast in the hotel and earlier the previous day the Missus sampled the semolina based confection called Makroud. Stuffed with a date mixture and drenched in honey, this eggless confection can keep for months. The Missus and I decided that makroud just might make it through our trip, so we decided to get some. Instead of taking us to one of the bakeries along the front of the medina, we were lead to a tiny little shop down one of the alleyways of the medina. In it, a gentleman made makroud by hand, the old fashioned way….probably for decades.

We watched him roll out and fold the confection with an economy of motion.

 We didn't realize that once formed the makroud is actually deep fried then drenched in honey.

While our makroud was being made we were taken Dar Hassine Allani an example of a 18th century house in the medina. This was actually quite interesting and fun.

 I really enjoyed ducking down the tiny "rabbit hole" of the stairway to the food cellar. The temperature here remains very stable, which helps with the storage of the olive oil and honey.

We were treated to mint tea and makroud on the roof of the museum.

The view wasn't too shabby either…..

There was one last stop before picking our makroudup. We were led up a wide stairway to this contraption.

This is a camel driven "Noria" a water wheel. we were told that if we came back a few hours later, they would be a camel up here working the water wheelof the Bir Barrouta, a holy water well.

Really neat!

A few minutes later we wound our way back to pick up our makroud….which the folks at work actually enjoyed…..almost a month later!

Like most of the long trips we take, the Missus submitted a list of places She wanted to visit. It's my job to make that happen. Which what I tried to do. There seemed to be quite a few barriers based on the amount of time we had. First, most of the airports in Tunisia only do international flights…..and the airport at Tozuer only had flights on certain days. Second, we could do public transportation, but it seemed fairly long and somewhat disjointed. Third, we'd be pretty much unable to get to Ksar Ghilaine without at least hiring a driver. At this point I put some feelers out…..doing a "tour group" was out of the question for us, but I started looking into private tours. Some of them were surprisingly expensive….but I finally got an interesting response from Experience It Tours. In fact, Alan Burricks, the company's representative in Tunisia was very responsive usually returning my emails within a day. The company offered a bunch of different tours, but when I submitted my own request/inquiry, they found a way to work in out! We pretty much did a 9-10+ tour in six days. The hotels were all rated 4-5 star, all entrance fees were paid(expet for the 1 dinar "camera fee"), and breakfast and dinner included. So private driver/guide and all that came out to just about 3K……which was worth it in the end. Heck, Alan even called to see how things were going and actually stopped by to see us at the end of our tour in Djerba….really nice guy!

We got down to the lobby of our hotel in Tunis and a few minutes later our driver, "Ben" met us. We loved that he was always early or on time. introductions done, Ben took us for some "cafe express" (espresso) and we headed out. We learned a lot about the people, politics, and culture of Tunisia during our drives. Over the course of our tour, Ben slowly figured out what we were really interested in, and we ended up with a nicely tailored tour.

We headed out from Tunis and stopped in the beach resort city of Hammamet, which is basically a resort town. We stopped briefly at the medina and had a look around…….things looked a bit slow and depressed.

The medina was basically a tourist stop and we aren't really interested in souvenirs and that stuff so we moved on……..

Our next stop was the third largest city and home to some mega-resorts, over 40,000 beds, and killer traffic……Sousse.

Right past the traffic jam on the outskirts of the city, Ben stopped here:

Catacombs? Now this was something I hadn't read about. Apparently, in 1888 the French army discovered a network of underground Christian burial galleries. Considered a threat to the Roman Empire, Christians were persecuted, and it is believed that they were not allowed to bury their dead in cemetaries, thus they took to creating the catacombs.

The actual entrance itself is rather unassuming….just a little doorway.

Opening to some stairs leading underground…….

And the underground passageway.

I read that there are over 5 kilometers of catacombs in Sousse with over 15,000 gravesites. Only this short area is open to tourists.

Do you notice something about our photos? There's no one in sight……..this is not by design; there wasn't anyone visiting while we were here, which added to our experience and creeped the Missus out. After seeing a grave like this one:

The Missus wanted out………

Even though the streets above were quite busy; the silence was indeed eerie, and with no one else around, those shadows sure did start to play with your imagination.

 After this we headed into Sousse and made a stop at the very touristy medina…….

After which we stopped for lunch….Ben picked a restaurant called….Planet Food????? With US movies playing on the televisions above and photosof Ahh-nold, Angelina, Clint, Bruce, and a whole bunch of movie stars you'd know by just their first names, this was obviously a Planet Hollywood knock-off. So really, Plant Food??? Interesting thing was, the place was full of what seemed like local, or Tunisian tourists…not a European in site. Ben told us that all the tourists just stay in the all-inclusive resorts and places like this now mostly cater to Tunisians…..we were also told it's a favorite date-night place. Kinda cute, I guess….

The menu was a mixed bag of stuff like pizza, which Tunisians claim is not Italian, but Berber in origin, so it belongs here…….kebabs, meat, and seafood.

We started with some salade mechouia, which turned out to be not bad.

This was actually seasoned and had some flavor.

Of course there was harissa provided….along with some very sweet ketchup and mayo.

The Missus ordered the clams and mussels which was cooked nicely, but the sauce had cream in it, which made it a bit too rich for the Missus.

It really messed up the really sweet and delicate flavor of the mussels and clams. As you can tell, the portion size was pretty hefty.

I went with the Veal Merguez and was once again stunned at the "three starch" standard……rice(overcook – bleh), frites (soggy and limp), and more potatoes. Oh, make that four starch, I forgot to mention the bread!

 The merguez had a nice combination of seasonings and was very lean. However, I missed the gamey flavor of lamb.

This was a interesting combination or European and Tunisian flavors with a very Western theme. It seemed a bit strange at first, but after a while it attained a kind of kitschiness with us……

After Sousse, we headed South about 45 miles to the town of El-Djem with a population of about 18,000. Arriving in the little town of El Djem is pretty amazing. Why you ask? Well, towering above the little town is the thrid largest Roman Colosseum known.

It's an impressive sight.

It is estimated that the Colosseum could hold as many as 35,000 people, or almost twice the population of modern El Djem. It was built by Gordian who was declared Emperor of Rome during a rebellion against Maximus I and lastede a total of 31 days. The structure was built between 230 and 238 AD. At the time, the city and area was known as Thysdrus and was extremely wealthy because of olive oil. It is said that Gordian committed suicide within the Colosseum when it became obvious that the rebellion had been thwarted.

Much of the coliseum remains intact, though stones were removed in the 17th century to build the Great Mosque at Kairouan. It's the North side that looks the most impressive, the Ottomans shelled the South side in a rebellion.

You are also able to enter and walk through the underground passages…..

Here you pass chambers which held animals and gladiators.

Who were led down these passageways to daylight above to either meet their maker or perhaps live to see another day. It's probably appropriate that some of the scenes from the movie Gladiator were filmed here.

As you can tell, there were no other people here but us. It was very cool in some ways, but also depressing as well. We were told that Europeans spent all their time at the "all-inclusives" and Americans were too afraid to come…….

After our visit, Ben drove us a short way to the El Djem Archaeological Museum.

Before entering, Ben asked us if we had been to the Bardo Museum. When we told him we had, he asked us to compare the frescoes here to those in the Bardo.

Like the Bardo, we put on shoe covers, and just as before, I felt very uncomfortable walking on frescoes.

As for the frescoes, we both thought the collection here were in much better condition than those at the Bardo.

There's also a street of Roman Villas being excavated as part of the museum.

There's also a first century Roman Villa that was moved here for display called the House of Africa.

If visiting El Djem, making a stop here is worth the time.

From El Djem, we headed the 45-50 miles to the city of Kairouan. The Great Mosque here is considered the fourth most holy site in Islam. Thus, seven visits here is equal to one visit ot Mecca…or something like that.

As we entered the city and passed the Great Mosque, we saw a large number of men….all men, with long beards and dressed in conservative Muslim attire. There seemed to be a rally going on. Ben turned to us and said, "Salafis and Al Qaeda……" Really??? Apparently, 3 thousand conservative Muslims had been bussed in from all corners of Tunisia for a show of power to hold this rally.

It was fairly interesting, perhaps a bit unsettling….but of course we stayed at the fortress like El Kasbah. Not too many accommodations in Kairouan and La Kasbah is the only five star in the city.

We were told that La Kasbah had actually been a French Fort, that had been converted into a pretty nice looking hotel.

Our room here was the Missus' favorite on this tour……

Of course since breakfast and dinner were included, it was sure to be the buffet. La Kasbah's offerings and execution left a bit to be desired……even as buffet food, under-flavored, over-cooked, and just dumped out on the line.

Thus we kept our dinner small and to a minimum.

 There was one thing I just had to try, however. I just couldn't figure out why Tunisians loved pasta…overcooked pasta. There was a line for the spaghetti so I thought I should give it a try…..egads, this was bad. It wasn't overcooked, but that sauce was just plain….well…..think of the dude with the toque whose photo is on a can….

The Missus on the other hand, found something She loved:

It's called Makroud, a pastry of fairly course semolina flour, filled with a date mixture, deep fried, then glazed with honey. It's pretty hefty for it's tiny size…..the Missus just loved this stuff and we'd go hunting for more later on……

It had been a pretty long day.Which meant that we just pretty much crashed out fairly quickly that night….with dreams of frescoes in my head.

I know this is a long one….if you hung around till the end, I thank you for reading!