I know it's been a while since my last post, but i just got back from an amazing week touring the south of tunisia. i will attempt to summarize, but please excuse the length of this post.

monday- We left sidi bou said early in the morning and headed to kairouan which is the fourth holiest city in islam, and site of the first mosque built in africa. we saw some ancient water cisterns, the shrine of an important islamic saint, and obviously the great mosque of kairouan. non-muslims are only allowed to enter the courtyard of the mosque, but not the inside of the prayer chamber. we also got to eat a tunisian pastry called makroud which is a sesame dough stuffed with date paste, fried, and covered in honey. kairouan is supposed to have the best makroud in the country...i would agree. from there we went to sbeitla where we saw the ruins of a roman village, featuring a temple, an amphitheatre, several churches, and lots of houses. We spent the night in Gafsa which is a fairly large city, but we didn't really have time to explore the city. we did however enjoy a rousing game of charades in the hotel.

tuesday- from gafsa we headed to tozeur, but on the way stopped in a small town (whose name i don't remember) to take a ride on the red lizard train. this is an old train used by miners to access the phosphorous mines. now it is a tourist destination. the views were really beautiful, and our assignment while on the train was to observe the other tourists. all of us commented on how we somehow wanted to set ourselves apart from them, because we feel like we are really "experiencing" tunisia, while they are just seeing it. When we got to Tozeur in the afternoon, we were split into two groups. my group was instructed to go to a museum called Chak Wak, which was constructed by a man in Tozeur with entirely too much money. it is literally the most bizarre place i have ever experienced. it is kind of like a theme park, but the theme changes halfway through from evolution to creationism. in the first part you walk into a cave with statues and pictures representing the evolution of man. then you walk on a path with lots of big dinosaurs. then you go to a petting zoo. then you go through a museum of all major religions. then you walk through the story of creation, noah's ark, and the family tree of all the prophets. then there is a large section on islam. not only did the whole place look and feel weird, they never attempted to explain how it all fit together, because most muslims do not find a conflict between science and religion. to get back to the hotel we were told to find a horse drawn cart (which we literally saw 20 of on the way to chakwak). however when we left the museum, we could not find one anywhere and ended up catching a ride with a random farmer who took all the grass/hay off his cart and took us back to the hotel. it was a little sketch but mostly really funny.

wednesday- in the morning we visited several oases near tozeur. they were neat but so infested with tourists that it wasn't all that fun. in the afternoon we went to visit the ong jemel star wards set whiich is out in the dunes. to get there, we rode in these jeeps that drove over the dunes, making the trip more or less like a roller coaster. the driver told us that this is really just to amuse tourists, and that you can easily drive through the area without going over the dunes. but i enjoyed it. the star wars set itself was small and not all that interesting, but it was neat to see how george lucas would have found the area convincing as another planet. the landscape is really other-worldly. we watched the sunset from atop a large sand dune.

thursday- in the morning we left tozeur to go to douz, another major southern city. there we were given a couple hours to explore the market. it was very touristy. but i ran into my friends dana and lindsay who had been off in search of a special southern tunisian pizza called mutugba. they asked a man at a restaurant who told them they would not find a restaurant that sold it, but that he could take them to a lady who sold them out of her home to her neighbours and friends. so they went and she told them to give her thirty minutes to make them. at which point i ran into them and joined them. when we returned to her house she sat us down in her living room and we ate the pizzas with the lady, her two daughters, and the baby of one of the daughters. she even invited us to come back for dinner but we were leaving douz in a couple of hours. it was such a cool experience and the pizza was delicious. it was basically chewy round bread stuffed with harissa, onions, and parsley. after that we set off to the desert where we went on an hour long camel ride to reach our sahara camp. my camel was not very happy because he was wearing a muzzle and therefore made weird groaning noises the entire time. the camp looks completely remote when you come in by camel, but we discovered when exploring the dunes that it was actually right next to a town of about 20,000. the camp consisted of a groups of large tents with beds and heaters, so it was not exactly what we had been expecting when we were told we'd be "camping in the sahara." but i didn't really mind, because nights in the desert are incredibly cold.

friday- in the morning we left the camp (on horse drawn carts) and then got back on the tour bus to go to djerba. along the way we stopped to see a troglodyte house which is a house built into the side of a hill. in this specific region of tunisia there is no rock or wood to build a house, so they dug cave-like houses. mounir knew a woman who has opened her private house to tourists to make a little extra money. she fed us homemade bread with honey and olive oil, and dressed up courtney in a traditional bride's outfit. when we got to djerba it was fairly late and we all were happy to have a hot shower and eat dinner.

saturday- we had all of saturday free to explore djerba on our own. we were staying in houmt-souk which is in the north of the island. we visited the marina, wandered around the city, and then caught a bus to a berber village in the south called gaulalla. everyone in the village was incredibly friendly and we wandered down some neighbourhood roads to find the beach. all of the kids in the street were completely amused to see a group of five americans walking down their street. a lot of the women in this village were dressed in traditional outfits which consisted of long white draped sheets with accents of orange, red, and maroon. they also wore straw hats. it was really nice to have a day just to explore without a structured schedule, and also to visit a place that wasn't so filled with tourists and things directed towards tourists. overall i loved the island because life was just so much slower paced there than in the city of tunis.

sunday- in the morning we got up early to make a stop at the ghriba synagogue which supposedly houses a stone from either the first or second jewish temple. djerba has a really high concentration of jews compared to the rest of tunisia, most of whom came from spain during the inquisition. about 10,000 jews come each spring on pilgrimage to visit this synagogue. it was incredibly ornate on the interior and very different from american temples. we were allowed to go in as long as the women wore scarves and the men wore kepas. then we drove to the ferry and headed back towards tunis. on the way we stopped at el-jem which is the second best preserved and third largest roman coliseum. it was really neat to see and also to explore, because we were given free reign. according to those in my group who have seen the coliseum in rome, you aren't allowed to access most of it. in this one we could climb on the ruins and even go underground to where they kept the gladiators, prisoners, and lions.

all in all it was a very fun but very exhausting trip. i think that's enough for one post...