Tusnoozia
Tunisia… what a bore. Some of it has to do with just leaving exciting Morocco and some of it is due to Ramadan. Tunisia seems fairly well-to-do with many beautiful, well-kept homes and neighborhoods. I have never seen so many empty and quiet streets including those in the capital, Tunis. Carthage is borderline bore although the history is so great that one cannot help but get caught up in imagining how it used to be. Most of Carthage as built by the pre-Roman Punics and Carthaginians was destroyed or overbuilt by the Romans. After the Romans, parts of Carthage were carted off to be used in homes, mosques and other buildings until most of it was no longer there. I imagined the caravans of marble columns moving out of Carthage to these other destinations. Greatest fire sale ever?
The people of Tunisia are very hospitable, friendly and reserved. They have always been helpful when we need it and travel and accommodations have been easy. Ramadan has made some meals difficult, but we have gotten better at moving around it. Peggy and I travel well together and we have filled the days with visits to museums, monuments or walking around the medinas. The Bardo Museum in Tunis is world-famous for having the best Roman mosaics and I loved being there. It is housed in an old mansion which is as stunning as the displays. A lot of the mosaics focused on Bacchus, Selenus, drunken scenes (including Hercules drunk) and other pagan scenes and pastimes. Maybe the Roman Empire fell due to much of a good time? I’m just glad that the Islamic governments have allowed the mosaics to survive and now display them for all to see. Tunisia, like Morocco, has an alcohol production system in place which is probably larger than needed for the infidels. I like their Celtia beer, but have not tried their wines. We were pleasantly surprised while in El-Jem to find a museum that has mosaics that are of better quality than those in the Bardo and they are displayed for closer inspection. Another great subject for the mosaics is coliseum business – beasts and gladiators. Who else would depict lions, tigers and bears (oh…) in the same scene? I wonder who would want to see the gruesome scenes that were depicted such as a “panther” eating a man’s face (including red mosaic pieces depicting the blood). Maybe it was a conversation piece in their foyer?
We were in El-Jem to see the third largest Roman coliseum. A good amount of it is ruins, but enough of the coliseum remains to be able to easily imagine what it was like and to allow us to climb to the top level. The sunlight shining through the multiple tiers of arches made for a beautiful sight. This is one of the best architectural gems that I have seen. I found the basement level where the pens that kept the animals and humans prior to their one and only act as well as the tunnel leading from the cages to the “stage” level to be quit eerie. We then took a train to Sousse and a louage (shared van taxi) to Kairouan where we are now located for two days. (the 4:30ish PM prayers just started to be blasted from a number of mosques creating a cacophony which will later be replaced by thousands of screeching birds coming back to nest in the trees across from our hotel.) Kairouan is Islam’s fourth holiest site after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. It is holy because a passing dude in the 700s found a gold cup in the sand that turned out to be from Mecca. Water then started to flow and that well which can still be drunk from is said to have water from Mecca. I doubt it. The Great Mosque is very tranquil and beautiful. We were lucky to be able to view into the prayer room which contains dozens of marble columns (from where else!) to support the large room’s roof. Pagan columns used to build a holy Islamic mosque… that’s ironic. The rest of the town’s medina is walled and we enjoyed walking around the near-empty streets.
Prior to El-Jem we had travled by train to Mahdia on the eastern coast from Tunis. Mahdia is a real snooze being that it is past the summer season and Ramadan is going on. It is on a tiny peninsula that used to be walled two thousand years ago. Its quaint Mediterranean streets are dominated by the mosque and sixteenth century Spanish fort. We liked the museum which had more pieces from Carthage and walking around the village. The best part of the town was the dinner we were invited to by the owners of the Hotel El Medina where we stayed. They had a traditional spread including an egg-in-pastry dish called bika, a spinach and lamb soup, couscous (of course!), grilled fish, bread and tiny flavor-bursting olives. It was very kind and Ramadan-like of them to invite us into their lives and holiday meal.
A louage ride to Tunis tomorrow will get us into position to fly to Cairo on Monday. I’ll look forward to the fevered pitch of Egypt (preconception!) after nine days of quiet in Tunisia although I will probably complain about it, too, reminiscing about the tranquil life in Tunisia. Speaking about tranquility, Peggy and I visited the American Armed Forces, North Africa cemetery and memorial in Carthage. Michael Green, the director of the site, gave us a very personal and lengthy tour. It was very moving as all of our military cemeteries spread around the world. One last image… When we drove in Kairouan yesterday I noticed bull’s heads hanging by hooks in the street side meat markets. I’m always looking for a gory market head shot to take and I was delighted today that we found three heads while out for a walk. The best one had its tongue hanging out and bloody snot running out of both nostrils. The bull looked as tranquil as this whole country. OK, so maybe I have a little of that coliseum craziness in me after all. Thank Allah for the Romans and their excitement… Tunisia… possibly the world’s most boring country.
Tags: Africa, Travel
vagabondrick
Leave a Reply