A long time ago in a galaxy far far away (Tunisia)

Our trip south included a unique Tunisian conveyance called a “Louage”.  These mini-buses (really extra large vans) mirror the bus routes, sometimes even sharing stations.  Approaching the area, drivers scream out their destinations in a competition for your Dinar (currency).  The irony is that normally Tunisians tend to rush to get on and off of all transport, yet they embrace a mode that requires all eight seats to be filled before departure (which may take from 5 minutes to 1.5 hours).  After about 30 minutes wait, we were en route.

The stark and dramatic desert landscapes of the south coupled with ingenious indigenous housing and structures also turns out to be a picture perfect stand-in for alien worlds. 

The first Star Wars movie was filmed here back in 1977, and don’t think the locals don’t know it – making it part of every back-country tour.  Many of the sets are still in place and one - teenage Luke Skywalkers’ whitewashed subterranean home is now a hotel in an area where there are still families living below ground to moderate the 50+ degree summer heat and sub-zero winter nights.

We spent several days touring the wild and wonderful, strange and unnatural near the towns of Tozeur, Matmata and Tatouine (which again Star Wars borrowed as the planetary name of Luke Skywalker’s birth).

Besides the underground dwellings, sites were constructed within vast dune areas and alongside gleaming white salt lakes.  Looking more like the inspiration for the Flintstones (vs. Star Wars), the oddly round shaped multi-storey “Ghorfas” (originally self-sufficient desert communities) doubled as extraterrestrial encampments.  It’s a sci-fi nerd paradise – if I only had my light-sabre!!!

We ended our Tunisian sojourn on the desert island of Djerba, an odd collection of history and package tour beach front hotel properties for the Euro crowd (there are direct flights from many major European centres which may explain the multitude of well-fed German and French seniors lounging about). 

The island boasts a fort exploited and refurbished by the various controlling interests over the last millennium, as well as an impressive, and still active, synagogue dating from the 6^th century with some of the oldest Torah’s in the world (my mom will be so proud).

Despite the Roman ruins, alien landscapes and other antiquities, one lasting impression of Tunisia is the endless groves of Olive trees, no matter how arid, dusty and inhospitable, they were ever-present.

The national tourism documentation touts the country’s achievements endlessly and there were recently celebrations of the 23rd anniversary of “the change” - a date conspicuously coinciding with the first “election” of the current President (who incidentally changed the country’s constitution to be able to run indefinitely).  A quote from the Tunisair magazine states “… nourishing and perpetuating the Tunisian dream and as a result, the entire nation’s horizon will light up…the country itself which rises in the hierarchy of nations.”  Based on our observations, we aren’t quite sure whether “the change” represents puberty or menopause…

NOTE:  MORE TUNISIA PHOTOS LOADED ON flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thegoobers_pics/sets/72157625519906203/