Sidi Bou Said is a small town near Tunis. Its claim to fame is that many of the houses in town are painted in white and blue, making it unusually picturesque.
The last couple of days of this journey I visited some places in and near Tunis. But before I start writing about what I saw and did then I will write about two things that happened in Tunisia that were not so fun.
In 2002 Tunisia was a very nice and safe country to travel in. People were friendly and I enjoyed myself a lot. But when traveling even at the best of times things can happen that are not fun. Usually we write nothing or only very little about the moments when it sucks to travel. Here I will make an exception and write about one near robbery and one near death experience.
One day in Tunis I was approached by a man who wanted to befriend me. Oh yes, I am fully aware that this is a classic scam. He asked me if I wanted to have a drink with him. I said yes, because I had reasons to believe that he was trustworthy. But I kept my guard up since I was aware that he might be up to something that I didnt want to take
part in. When he insisted on buying the drink for me and didnt allow me to even follow him to the bar I knew something was off. When I told him that I really wanted to buy the drink myself he cursed me and walked away. I dont want to know what would have happened to me if I had accepted his offer of a free drink. I would probably have been drugged and robbed but what more would have happened? Would I even have lived to tell the tale?
The near death experience started late one evening. I was in one town and I wanted to go to the next town. I checked the bus time table and I got lucky, the last bus for the day had not left yet. I sat down at the bus stop and waited. A minibus drove up and I asked if it was the bus I wanted to take. The bus driver said that it was and I went on board. Soon I was going to learn that he probably would have preferred that I hadnt been there at all.
only passenger. My guess is that if I hadnt been waiting for the bus he could have gone home directly instead of having to drive me. But there I was and he had no choice but to do his job. From the way he was driving it was obvious that he was angry though. He drove like he had stolen the minibus. On dark, narrow and winding roads he was driving well over 100 km/h. I feared that we were going to crash so I frantically tried to find a seat belt, but there was none. He didnt crash, we both arrived safely to the destination. But I dont think I have ever been so scared of dying in my entire life.
Again I want to point out that these two stories are not in the least representative for what it was like to travel in Tunisia in 2002. Most of my visit was lovely and I really had a great time.
Sidi Bou Said is a small town near Tunis. Its claim to fame is that many of the houses in town are painted in white and blue, making it
One of the most famous Roman era ruins in Tunisia are the remains of the city Carthage. These ruins are quite close to Sidi Bou Said. It is so close that when I had finished my visit in Sidi Bou Said I decided to walk to Carthage.
I didnt have time to see the entire site that day though, because Carthage is large and it takes several hours to visit it if you want to do it properly. Therefore I went back the next day as well.
Carthage was the capitol of the Punic Empire and as such it was a rival to Rome. When the Romans conquered the city in the year 146 BCE they pretty much destroyed the city. If that was tactics or petty revenge I let historians decide. What I know is that the city was later rebuilt and became an important city in the Roman Empire.
When visiting Cartage I in the outskirts of the site I saw some large water cisterns. These cisterns were part of the citys water supply
system. The water source they used was a well located in the mountains, more than 130 km away from the city.
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