Near our hotel was a strangely quiet, white, modernistic tourist village, where Grandaddy and I walked a few times and looked out over Carthage at sunset. The clustered design and emptiness of the village was in weird contrast to our lavish hotel, which was full of Tunisian art, mosaics, marble, and people.
Sometimes we heard the Muslim call to prayer in Carthage below our hilltop hotel; these calls were melodic and very pleasant. We heard these calls in other parts of Tunisia, including early in the morning in an oasis town on the northern edge of the Sahara Desert.
When the scientific meeting ended, we all traveled to the eastern, southern and western edges of the nation. First, crossing from the mainland over an ancient Roman road, we entered beautiful Djerba, an island full of white houses with bright blue doors; it was busy with hotels set up for European tourists. The captivating red bougainvillea bushes draped over the white …show more content…
We saw many things that we didn’t expect, like a man riding on a camel and talking into a cellphone (this was when many Americans still didn’t own cell phones), nomads in sloping tents placed in olive groves (where everyone in each family worked to harvest the olives), troglodytes (homes carved out of rock caves), a camel riding in the back of a pickup truck (say what?), and little ledges in every crevice and hillside to catch water whenever anything fell from the sky. We saw oases planted with a single type of date palm trees, which is a dangerous practice inviting plagues that could wipe out the entire crop of dates. We saw a lovely canyon (like a little Grand Canyon), greenhouses heated by hot water pumped up from one mile under the desert, a crumbling set for one of the “Star Wars” movies, dry lakes, dairy cows grazing on grasses growing under olive trees, the ancient Roman Coliseum and town of El Jem with stunning mosaics, and herds of wild camels roaming in the
Sometimes we heard the Muslim call to prayer in Carthage below our hilltop hotel; these calls were melodic and very pleasant. We heard these calls in other parts of Tunisia, including early in the morning in an oasis town on the northern edge of the Sahara Desert.
When the scientific meeting ended, we all traveled to the eastern, southern and western edges of the nation. First, crossing from the mainland over an ancient Roman road, we entered beautiful Djerba, an island full of white houses with bright blue doors; it was busy with hotels set up for European tourists. The captivating red bougainvillea bushes draped over the white …show more content…
We saw many things that we didn’t expect, like a man riding on a camel and talking into a cellphone (this was when many Americans still didn’t own cell phones), nomads in sloping tents placed in olive groves (where everyone in each family worked to harvest the olives), troglodytes (homes carved out of rock caves), a camel riding in the back of a pickup truck (say what?), and little ledges in every crevice and hillside to catch water whenever anything fell from the sky. We saw oases planted with a single type of date palm trees, which is a dangerous practice inviting plagues that could wipe out the entire crop of dates. We saw a lovely canyon (like a little Grand Canyon), greenhouses heated by hot water pumped up from one mile under the desert, a crumbling set for one of the “Star Wars” movies, dry lakes, dairy cows grazing on grasses growing under olive trees, the ancient Roman Coliseum and town of El Jem with stunning mosaics, and herds of wild camels roaming in the