Tunisia - 30 September 2010 (2)

Into the Desert

Sfax War Cemetery

The first stop on our journey was the Sfax war cemetery.  Most of the graves here were for people killed at the end of the World War II fighting in North Africa in 1943.  There were graves for people of many Commonwealth countries: New Zealand, Australia, Canada and India as well as Britain.  Many of the British dead came from Scottish regiments, especially the Black Watch, Gordon Highlanders and Argyll Highlanders.  The Indians were buried behind the main cemetery in an area reserved for Moslems, Hindus and Sikhs.  One of them had the Victoria Cross.  Many were just 18 or 19 years old.  Although many years have passed since they were killed, I found it all very sad.

Sand Roses

We got back on the bus and drove through the industrial outskirts of Sfax and then along the coast.  We stopped for lunch at a very expensive service station, which did not have much in the way of vegetarian food, so I ate the bread I had bought in the medina.  Outside, they had piles of brown crystals, which had apparently grown in the sand when the rain dripped through.  Some people took one as a souvenir, but I thought they would get damaged in my luggage.

As we headed south, the number of Libyan lorries increased.  They could be clearly identified by their white number plates – Tunisian number plates are black.  We passed lots of restaurants serving lamb.  The dead lambs were hanging up outside each one to prove that they were fresh and male.  Then we started to notice piles of plastic containers alongside the road.  These contained very cheap petrol, brought over from Libya by the lorry drivers for sale on the black market.  Lotfi said that one litre of petrol in Libya was cheaper than one litre of water in Tunisia.  I worried about the fire hazard.  The containers looked very fragile and the day was growing very hot.

We were now in the desert, where dates were very cheap, especially as they had just come into season.  We stopped to buy some.  After Kim’s generosity with the coffee the other day, I felt obliged to reciprocate and bought a kilo for everyone to share.  Unfortunately, the sharing did not work out as well as I had hoped and we ended up having to throw some away.

Piles of Henna

New Style Minar

We stopped in Gabes for a coffee break and the bus dropped us near to a market.  This was mixed with stalls containing beautifully sculpted piles of spices and henna for the locals and other stalls selling t-shirts and jewellery for the tourists.  I decided to avoid some washing and bought two t-shirts, decorated with camels, to tide me through to the end of the tour.  The guy who sold them to me turned out to be quite annoying.  Once he had made his sale, he kept trying to touch my hair.  I guess Tunisian men might have a hair fetish because it is often hidden.  After making my purchases, I joined the others outside the café.  The mosque was opposite and had a very modern looking minaret.

We continued south, still following the coast and crossed the railway line several times.  We passed more than one train that afternoon.