Our last days on the African continent (by Lieze)

Thursday 17 March

Hello everybody!

As Leen already told you, we started our last week on the African continent.

Today we continued our trip through Tunisia and we arrived at Kairouan, also known as “the city of 50 mosques”. After Mecca and Medina is this city in north-central Tunisia the third holiest city in Islam.

When we arrived at Kairouan, we immediately saw the strong and powerful minaret of the Great Mosque of Sidi-Uqba. And next to its impressive measurements, the minaret is also the oldest of the world.

As we are non-muslims, we could not enter the mosque but by looking inside the doorway, we could catch a glimpse of the marble columns! It is known that there are over 400 columns of marble and granite, but local inhabitant told us about a legend which says that it’s impossible to count them without going blind! Although it’s just a story, we wisely decided not to count them and we moved on to the medina of the city. In the souks are hundreds of little shops with souvenirs, spices and other food, but what you see the most is carpet shops. That’s not really surprising when you know that Kairouan is the oldest and most renowned carpet centre of Tunisia. When you see all those colours and patterns, it’s almost unbelievable that the carpets are handmade. You’d think that the creativity of the weavers is inexhaustible!

As there are countless little alleyways in the souks it was very difficult to find our way back out, so when we arrived at our hotel, it was already getting dark.

After dinner, we decided to go to bed early because tomorrow, we’re travelling further to the north.

Friday 18 March

Around 8 p.m. we left Kairouan for Tunis. The plan was to drive immediately to the capital of Tunisia but when we were driving for about one hour, we passed Sousse. Because this is also a very famous city, we decided to have a stop. And what was meant to be a quick stop-over turned out into a visit of a whole day!

This “pearl of the Sahel” has a very mild climate (it was about 20°C at noon) so it was very pleasant to visit the city.

Although it’s a very touristic place and there are a lot of hotels and resorts, the city hasn’t lost its charms.

As there is a lot to do and we didn’t have much time, we had to make a difficult decision: either we would visit the museum and some well-preserved catacombs, or we would spend the day shopping (because here in Sousse, we found the first decent shopping centre in weeks!).

We all really wanted to go shopping but we found it a pity if we would ignore the culture of the city, which is also on the UNESCO-list of world heritage. That’s why we’d decided to visit only the museum (and not the catacombs) and to go shopping afterwards.

The Archaeological Museum in Sousse exhibits a very large collection of mosaics, masks and statues dating from the Roman occupation. And the breath-taking Head of Medusa seems to hold your gaze when you enter the building!

In the afternoon we went to the shopping centre and we couldn’t believe our eyes! We hadn’t seen such a shopping complex since the start of our journey and we all really enjoyed this shopping moment! Everybody bought some souvenirs and I found a beautiful water pipe.

But as we still had to drive two hours to Tunis (fortunately there’s a decent motorway between Sousse and Tunis!), we decided to leave about 4.30 p.m.

So this stop today wasn’t foreseen on our planning but we all loved it!

Talk to you soon,

Lieze

Sunday 20 March

Dear friends and family,

Today was already our last day in Africa! We’ve spent the last two days in Tunis and it was a very big difference with the other cities we’ve visited in Tunisia. We were surprised to see all the modern buildings, such as banks, hotels, conference halls… But of course there’s still an ancient part too and there you find the famous medina. It’s a bit like the one in Sousse but much, much bigger and more touristic.

But because of the political commotion of the last few weeks, there aren’t many tourists now. After Ben Ali, the ex-president of Tunisia abdicated, the agitation stayed because the demonstrators aren’t satisfied with the promises of the government. And next to politics, there’s also a humanitarian crisis. There are hundreds of Libyans who flee to Tunisia because of the revolt in their country.

As tourists, we noticed that the atmosphere is very tense. We also read in a newspaper that the crime rate has increased so we have to make sure that we keep our bags close to ourselves all the time. Not easy when you constantly want to take pictures!

Oh right, that reminds me of yesterday. We went to Carthage, where you find a beautiful Roman site with theatres, temples, baths… Ok, perhaps you might think that those old ruins are boring and ugly, but imagine that, between the ruins, there are palm trees waving and on the background, there is the bright blue see and mountains of the Andes! I can assure you that it takes your breath away!

Furthermore, we also visited the National Bardo Museum where we’ve seen a large collection of mosaics.

Today, we went to Sidi Bou Saïd. The houses in this picturesque village are completely painted in white and blue and it looks like a fairy-tale; there are numerous gardens with jasmine-flowers, which smell lovely!

I’d never imagined that central and North Africa could be so beautiful and I’ve seen a lot of places I’d never heard of before. And although there’s still a lot to discover here on the African continent, I’m really looking forward to continue our journey through Europe!

Bye,

Lieze