Tunisia - 27 September 2010 (2)

El Kef

Another of my feathered friends

As we headed back to El Kef, I fell asleep again.  We got out at the hotel instead of going into town to eat.  The hotel maids were eating in the area by the canaries and, very generously, offered us some of their lunch.  We thanked them but declined.

Heuly, Caroline and I went down to the pool.  The others were brave and went in, but only briefly.  The water was very cold when I tested it – just with my toes.  Anne joined us and then Ruth when she got back from town.  She managed to stay in long enough to swim two lengths.

Roman Baths

Later, we were taken back into El Kef.  I thought we were going to do some shopping, but Lotfi wanted to give us another guided tour.  Our first stop was to admire the cisterns of El Kef, but then we met someone who worked in a traditional house, now used as offices and for meetings and classes.  She invited us in to see the house, which was arranged around a central courtyard, with a garden in the middle in Andalusian style.  There were some very pretty, Tunisian made tiles on the walls.

Ruth had gone to find Werner, who said he wanted to revisit his hotel from a much earlier trip.  She failed to find him and met up with us in the old Roman baths. The site was surrounded by modern buildings, with apartment blocks forming part of the walls of the site.  There were lots of columns and votive stelae, but there were only a few rooms as these baths were smaller than others we had seen.

El Kef from the Kasbah

Then it was time to begin the climb to the Kasbah.  We went up and up and up.  Lotfi kept saying: “it’s not far now” as we came to the top of a flight of steps, but when we got there and went round the corner, there would be more steps and the climb would continue.  At long last we reached the Kasbah and discovered that there were two of them.

El Kef and City Wall

We went into the smaller one which was showing serious signs of neglect.  We climbed up to the walkway at the top of the walls and looked out over the town.  I did not take any photos as Lotfi said that there would be much better views from the other Kasbah, but I could see the inner courtyards of the blue and white houses down below and the mountains in the distance.

View across to Algeria

Then we went into the larger Kasbah, which was in much better condition and is used for concerts.  They were getting ready for a concert that week, which meant that we could not enter one of the rooms which stored all the equipment for the event.  The entrance to the Kasbah was over a moat.  Lotfi said that it had been full of crocodiles at one time.  As we climbed up to the roof, we were serenaded by hundreds of sparrows and some larger birds, which were coming to roost in a nearby tree.  A mobile phone tower was also a popular roosting site.

Kasbah from below

From the roof, Lotfi pointed out the flat mountain where Jugurtha held out against the Romans.  He said that some of the hills in that direction were in Algeria.  Algeria was just 40km away, which was why the Kasbah had remained an important military establishment for a long time.  Looking closer at the town, we could see the remains of the city wall.

After exploring the Kasbah, we headed for a café where we could enjoy our first Arabic coffee.  The café was in a dead end street, which had a tree growing at the end, providing some welcome shade.  Arabic coffee is exactly the same as Greek coffee or Turkish coffee.  We caused problems because we did not want the very sweet pre-made coffee, so we had to wait for our order.

Sparrows serenading us

I wanted to buy a skirt as I was not happy with the clothes I had with me.  Sue offered to show me where there were some market stalls, so we left the others and headed down the hill.

We walked past the synagogue and looked in through the door.  We avoided going in as it was getting late and there was an entrance fee.  Our descent took us through a courtyard, where some little boys wished us “Bon Jour”.  We chatted to them and their mothers as we walked by.  Unfortunately, the market was closing when we got there.  I did look at one clothes stall, but there was nothing suitable.  Keen to make a sale, the stallholders kept suggesting things, but they seemed to be the wrong material or too many frills and flounces or just too good for walking round dusty ruins.  I did try on one denim skirt, but it was too tight.

Sue wanted to go back to the hotel to fetch Kim and to see whether Werner had gone back there, so we started to look for a taxi.  A Brazilian girl, who had studied in England, offered her translation services, but we did not need them and soon found a taxi.  Sue found both Kim and Werner at the hotel so, after just a few minutes, we got into another taxi and headed to the Post Office, which we had been told was near to the restaurant where we were eating that night.

We looked for the restaurant, found one and asked if they had a reservation for 10-12 people.  We were in luck, so we waited and, just as we were about to order drinks, Ruth appeared.  This time we were not offered the set meal, but could place our own orders.  It was a nice meal: just D5.000 for salad and chips.