Internet access is surprisingly poor in Tunisia (all government owned) but I have updated the site at last after Libya. It was problematic though because the government doesnt allow ftp (file transfer protocol) access so I had to find dial-up access. I asked in the internet cafe and Ilyess took me to many shops before finding one that could help me. Ilyess’ help was invaluable and over the next few days in Douz we became good friends.
Internet access is all the more bizarre in Tunisia as they use a different keyboard layout!! Several keys are swapped and numbers need the shift key and finding an @ sign is a nightmare!!
It was sad to leave the tranquility of daily life in Douz, it is a difficult element of overlanding, both deciding when to move on and leaving new found friends.
We visited the Roman Amphitheatre at El Jem and the Roman city at Dougga which has the most extraordinarily well preserved portico in the Forum. Also visited the tranquil town of Le Kef in the more agricultural north of Tunisia. The final day was spent in Bizertes, seeing the Medina, Old harbour and fish & vegetable markets. They were selling a huge barracuda for only GBP6!
Before leaving Tunisia we went to the beach to kill some time. Here I met Ben who spoke French and despite my terrible french language skills we managed a long conversation about world and Tunisian politics and many other things.
We are now on the Grandi Navi Veloci (part of Grimaldi group) ro-ro ferry to Genoa. We decided this was going to cheaper than Marseille. We will then drive down through Spain and meet up with our friends Mark & Blanca who we met in Kampala and travelled with through Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt. They are now going to live in Malaga. After that we plan to go to Morocco before returning to the UK, not sure by which ferry route yet!
Even though we still have 5 or 6 weeks left it does seem as if we are coming to the end of the adventure. The boat is a culture shock, thick fitted carpet (whats that?) and 4 Euro for 3 bits of cheese for breakfast and even the bread is extra!! In Africa we could have eaten (much better) for several days on this! Overlanding makes you thifty to the point of stingy.