Tunisia

Sock Monkey and P went to Tunisia and had the most fantastic, relaxing week.


We stayed at the Sinbad Hotel in Hammamet. I have now decided that I need to have a pirate's name in the title of all my hotels from now on. It was beautiful. Possibly the nicest hotel I have ever stayed at. Very swanky de-la posh and just our cup of tea. Or bottle of Tunisian Chardonnay as we quickly became accustomed to every night. The door of our room was opened for us and we were met with this: 

Our Room

Our room looked more like a junior suite with a massive bed covered in flower petals (different arrangement every day), a day bed, bathroom with bath & shower and another separate shower-room and French Windows which led onto our own private terrace. Two minutes after we arrived I answered a knock at the door and found someone standing there with freshly-laundered, fluffy bathrobes for us. Yes, this will do nicely we thought.

It was early evening so after quickly unpacking we made our way to catch our first glimpse of the hotel's private beach (below).

Managing to stop ourselves clapping with joy and then went to the Pool Bar for a celebratory cocktail. The Pool Bar was beautiful. Outside there is an infinity pool gives you the impression that you are swimming into the sea. Inside its painted clean white with white furniture and slightly ultraviolet lights which make it seem even whiter. Its a real chill-out zone. Then we got changed and went for dinner.

Infinity Pool

Next day we took a walk into Hammamet to get some money. We had a brief look in the Medina then made our way home for an exhausting afternoon of lounging around on the beach. We had decided that we wanted to take a trip into the Sahara Desert and the next trip was leaving the following morning. We booked it and had an early-ish night as we had to leave at 6am.

Because we were leaving early our breakfast was brought to our room which we ate on our terrace. Then we grabbed our overnight bags and left. Its about 200 miles from Hammamet to Douze. Douze is called 'The Gateway to the Sahara' because many people who travel from Northern Tunisia to the Sahara stay in Douze the night before.

On the way to Douze we visited the 2nd largest amphitheatre in the world. It certainly was huge. You could go into where they kept all the lions-and-tigers-and bears (oh dear). And I learned something very interesting. You could see little patches of marble on the walls of the arena. This wasn't for decoration. Oh no. This was to prevent the sabre-toothed beasts climbing up and over the walls and probably eating people.

After lunch we visited the troglodyte village of Matama. Star Wars was filmed in this area and it does look like another planet. From here it was another couple of hours to the hotel we were spending that night at and our first footsteps into the Sahara.

Before checking into the hotel we took an hour tip into the desert. Some people decided to ride camels but I have been on a camel twice before and deemed it unnecessary to do it again. Particularly as this trip was an hour. P would have had the screaming abdabs if she had had to ride one of them. In fact she didn't even like to get all that close to them. Nasty, ill-tempered, hissy, spitty, things. So we went by horse instead. In fact quite a few people ended up going by horse after attempting to ride the camels and quickly deciding that this was a bad idea. Actually one woman we got friendly said the minute she got on the thing she started to cry and had to be helped down.

Next morning we got up at 4am. Yes FOUR o'clock in the morning. This wasn't, however, the crack of dawn because dawn hadn't cracked yet. We were dragged out of bed so we could see her cracking all over the Sahara. You'll have to take my word for it that this picture is of the sun rising over the Sahara. Anyway, we then went on to visit some Salt Lakes. I found these fascinating. They looked like something you'd find on the moon (except there isn't any water there, only bugs) and the piles of salt were rock solid. Then we had our proper big trip into the desert *claps hands*. I had come prepared and was wearing my 'My Little Desert Explorer Outfit'. P bought a Lawrence of Arabia-type headdress. These outfits were necessary. 

                                                           It was about 42 degrees and sodding hot. We were right on the border of Algeria and could just see it in the distance.

It was a big ol' journey back to Hammamet. On the way we saw people flogging petrol by the side of the road. Not from petrol stations but from plastic containers which they had filled up cheaply in Libya and brought over to Tunisia to sell more expensively. And we saw camel heads hanging outside butcher's shops. We were sitting beside a group of Croatian people on the bus, one of whom was very funny. He didn't like the distances in Tunisia and really wanted a holiday in London (I suspect to visit all the gay nightclubs) so he was having a great time. When the guide said it would be another 'one hour and forty minutes' to the next stop he cried out in theatrical dismay, 'What? That's appalling!' We burst out laughing. Then, eventually, we saw our gorgeous hotel, disengorged ourselves from the bus and went to see what floral decoration was in our room. Barney the Bear had stowed away in my hand luggage and had come to Tunisia with us. Despite not having a passport. He didn't come to the Sahara with us as it would have been too hot for him (what with his fur) and he wouldn't have liked the camels or the sand. So he stayed in the room until we returned. He enjoyed being made every day. The guy who did the room incorporated Barney into all of his floral designs. You can just spot him sitting on the left hand pillow in this picture.

We decided to book ourselves into the spa for some pampering. On the first day we had a massage under jets of warm water and an aloe vera wrap. The next day was the hammam, scrub and hot stone therapy. My skin felt as soft as a 4 year olds and it was the best 100 quid I'd spent in ages.

There was some more lounging on the beach involved, a little bit of snorkeling, a bloody jellyfish stung me, and another visit to the Medina where some henna'ing took place. I have been to Medina's before but I have never, ever been with someone who bargains so well that the shopkeeper eventually accepts their price, almost chucks the stuff at them and has a face like a smacked arse. Well done P! She drives a hard bargain.

I can confirm that Tunisian Chardonnay is very, very nice. Every evening we would relax at the Pool Bar with a cold bottle and watch the sun set. After dinner we would then head over to the other pub and play backgammon.

Here we are in the Pool Bar on our last night. After a having wonderful time in Tunisia.