ROUND TRIP THROUGH TUNISIA DAY 5

We left Tozeur at 6 am, which meant that we had to get up at 5 !!



The last evening some of the group went to a  water pipe cafe, I stayed in the hotel, but on the picture we faked to smoke some apple or mint herbs.  It was a little hard to get up, but we had to do about 330 km !



We drove through a boring landscape and listened (or not) to little mad man our guide which becomes more strange everyday. He forgets everything and makes such stupid comments like "everybody is still sleeping (in a village) and we saw all men driving with donkeys or bikes to work ! From far we saw the Atlas mountains and when we asked him if these were the Atlas mountains he answered, yes these are mountains. We slowly get crazy with this guy. He has blackouts, repeats things several times and otherwise sleeps with his microphone at his mouth on his seat ! Fortunately we have our driver otherwise we would be lost !



The little villages were very sparsely located, and there were not many houses. We saw a lot of sheep and mostly farmers working on their fields.



We had to drive through a market which was very crowded. On the top left you see a Berber woman in her traditional costume which is very beautiful. The worst for us was to see all these poor sheep squeezed on the top of little trucks, in this awful heat. Nicole was tired and slept most of the time. She preferred to close her eyes and not see these animal transports !



Finally we arrived at our first destination to visit, the Roman Ruins of Sbeitla which are the best the best preserved Forum temples in Tunisia. I thought that the Romans really have been everywhere at least wherever I go ! It was very interesting to visit, one had a book which explained the ruins and explained to the others, I found a nice man sitting besides me on the above picture who lives there and knew really everything and even more. Our little mad man, was lost in his explanations, nobody understood what he said and finally he stopped talking, stood there in the heat and looked around. We had to tell him that we should go back to the bus !! Apparently he had suffered from a stroke, but then he shouldn't have accepted such a tiring and responsible job ! I only hope that he doesn't collapse !

After the Roman ruins, we visited the Great Mosque of Kairouan



It was really very big and it was so hot inside the courtyard from all these walls and colons reflecting the heat. Some of us had to get Kaftans, because they were not properly dressed. I mean at home they wouldn't go to church in shorts and sleeveless T-shirts either. Of course we laughed a lot because they looked so funny.

Exhausted we finally arrived at our hotel to have lunch, could just rest from 2 to 4 and then went off again to see the  The Aghlabid Basins a huge Claussium which is still standing and is one of the most complete of its kind around the Mediterranean sea. There my battery gave up its soul despite the fact that I had loaded it each evening. Probably because of the heat.  Unfortunately I had forgotten my spare battery at home I had to use my other camera, and of course I can't download any picture.

We also went to  the Mausoleum of Sidi Sahab, generally known as the Mosque of the Barber, where a wedding was celebrated. Very interesting unfortunately I can't show the pictures that will be for later.

After 1 1/2 h in the noisy city center in a Souk, I just had supper and then disappeared in this nice room, to finally rest a bit !