Tunisia - 1 October 2010 (2)

Granaries and Coffee Stops

Granaries in Medenine

The next stop was to see a granary in Medenine.  It took a long while to find it as we had to take a scenic route because of a road closure.  The diversion included cutting through empty plots where houses had been knocked down and squeezing through narrow streets, not intended for buses and made worse by parked cars.  One car was blocking the road because its driver was filling it up with Libyan petrol in a plastic container.  As we carried out our unplanned tour of the town, I noticed quite a few carts, pulled by donkeys, mules or the occasional horse.  Lotfi and Hammadi asked several people for directions, including a few policemen.  In the end, Lotfi ran off to scout the route and we eventually reached our goal.

Granaries in Medenine

The granaries were blocks of small rounded buildings, two storeys high and spread over a large area.  Those here in Medenine were only built around 1900, but Lotfi said that there were others elsewhere which were 400 years old.  Each tribe would have its own set of granaries, which it would use to store food after a good harvest to provide cover for years of drought.  The granaries fell into disuse when more modern food storage technology was introduced.  Each room had holes in the front and rear so air could circulate and keep the food fresh.  Granaries were built of mud and had wooden doors.  A secret hole in the mud was often built somewhere in the structure to hide jewellery and other valuables.

Friendly Dinosaur on Roundabout

We explored the granaries and even walked on the roofs of some, but then decided to go for a coffee.  I had a citronade and a few others did the same.

After the difficulty of finding the granaries, it was no problem getting out of town.  We headed towards another set of granaries, some of which had been restored for use in the first Star Wars prequel as the home of Aneurin Skywalker and his mother.  I made the mistake of leaving my camera on the bus, so I had a quick look round and then had an Arabic coffee.  It seemed to take a long time to make and I ended up being the last one back on the bus.

Lunch Spot

Watchful Eagle

We headed into Tatouine and went to the supermarket to buy a picnic lunch.  Then we headed to another refurbished granary complex with outside seating to eat.  I was very disappointed to discover that the pistachio nuts I had just bought were soft and mouldy, so that just left me with a banana and some cake.  I got Hammadi to open the bus and fetched the dates, which were handed round.  There was a café on the site and a few of us bought a citronade.  It was very expensive – D2.200 – but quite large and nicer than the normal ones.  The site was quite pleasant and was crowned by an eagle above a fountain.  This was turned on when we arrived.

Chenini from Café

After lunch, we headed to Chenini, where there was yet another granary at the top of a hill and some more troglodyte houses built into the side of the hill.  By now it was getting very hot, so Kim, Sue, Heuly, Anne and I stayed at the bottom and sat in a café.  When the others came back, they said that they had been unable to get into the granary as it was being restored.  They had been into one house and had met an 85 year old lady with tattoos on her face, who had taken a shine to Vic.

Finally, we left behind our tour of granaries and cafés and went to the hotel.  We were not the only arrivals and had to wait quite a while for them to process a group of French and Italians, who had arrived just before us.  The accommodation was scattered around the grounds and it was quite a walk to our room, made longer because someone had turned a sign round which sent us in the wrong direction.

After sorting ourselves out, we headed to the pool in the centre of the complex to sit and read or write outside.  Some of us, like Ruth, wanted to swim.  Unfortunately, a conference was being held in the hotel and this was the afternoon when the attendees were treated to a concert – around the pool.  The Italians were in the pool when we got there, but they soon left as they felt uncomfortable in their swimsuits with an audience of business suited Arabs nearby.  Even those of us who just wanted to read felt uneasy, so Lotfi arranged for the sun chairs to be moved behind a palm tree, out of sight of the audience.

We went for our daily briefing at 19.00 and were then supposed to go for the buffet dinner.  I had a look at what was on offer and decided that there was not enough vegetarian stuff to justify the fixed cost of D16.000.  Lotfi had got the dates off the bus when they went to fill up with petrol, so I went to his room to fetch them.  We chatted for a while.  He said that he collected coins and had bought some Victorian ones from a shop in the Shambles when he visited York.  He said he liked the UK, but it was so difficult even to get a tourist visa as people assumed he would “disappear” and not leave.  I said goodbye and went back to the room where Caroline tried unsuccessfully to make us a cup of tea.  It would appear that her new travel kettle could not cope with the electric currents in other countries.  Caroline also very kindly lent me enough US dollars to make sure there would be no problem with getting through the Libyan border.