Tunisia - Camel up and keep exploring
Our new friend (more about Tunisia later).
The snow has melted and Spring has well and truly arrived. The days are sunny and warm.
(Thanks Fabian for picture below which he took with Sven in Greece)
Malta
Sven was in Malta for four weeks before Caroline returned from Australia.
We waited for a good weather opportunity to continue our journey to Tunisia. This gave Caroline a couple of weeks to explore Malta.
There is no official Maltese national dish, but a feast of stewed rabbit known as fenkata comes close.
Time to confuse the devil
There are 365 churches on the Maltese Island, one for every day of the year!
The clocks on the bell towers are really special. That is because many local churches have two clocks, set at different times! The clock on the right tells the time to help the parishioners, but the one on the left is deliberately wrong, working hard to confuse the devil and ensure he cannot turn up and disrupt the church services.
The famous Maltese balconies are a national symbol and prominent characteristic of the houses on the island.
Many of these traditional houses are being replaced with modern buildings to accommodate the growing population and the large number of tourists,
We took the hop on and hop off bus to explore the North of the Island (a 3 hour ride). The South of the island took about the same time on the bus. We took the Public bus the following day to spend more time in Valetta and the fortified city of Mdina.
Last day in Malta
A last few touches before leaving. Washing off the city dirt from the boat
and checking the boat over. You would not think that this man is scared of heights ...
We finally left Ta'Xbiex (Malta Msida Yacht Marina) on the 19 of April 2023
Thanks Raul and Margarita for the picture (a lovely Spanish couple we met in Malta)
We anchored at the Blue Lagoon. Could not believe how busy it already was. There were so many tourist boats coming and going. They even had 8 Food Vans set up selling pizza, drinks, ice creams etc. Can't imagine what this place must be like in Summer during holiday season.
However, at sunset and with the last boat leaving, we were the only boat staying overnight.
We left early in the morning to sail to Monastir/Tunisia (179 nm/ 28 hours). It was a VERY bumpy ride. The night was very unpleasant and we were unable to make out what is water and what is the sky. Was this a star coming through the clouds or a boat in the water? We both felt very squeezy and the large waves did not give us a break.
Its not always smooth sailing!
Tunisia
We needed a special permission from our boat insurer for Tunisia (accident excess also doubled during that time). Caroline's Australian Health/travel insurance (of course always risk averse) stated that they would only cover her in the areas approved by the Australian Smart traveller site, which was everywhere except far down in the South and along the boarders of Algeria and Libya.
The pretty view when entering Monastir/Tunisia.
We prepared the standard travel documents, flags and also a detailed inventory with our alcohol on board (we had 60 bottles of wine and some spirits!) and our electronic items (fixed and not fixed). We knew that every item needed to be declared. We visited the Police, the custom office and the harbour master.
5 officials boarded our boat and asked us to opened all the cupboards and hatches.
We read in the sailing forums that it is expected to pay "Baksheesh" to officials when entering and leaving (which means Gift, Tip, "Bribe") and is often in form of alcohol, chocolates, money or other items.
We arrived the day after Ramadan called "Eid al-Fitr", the 'festival of breaking the fast' after the holy month of Ramadan. Some lovely Tunisian Ladies, whom we have never met before, gave us the box on the right. People are really lovely here.
20 Tunesian Dinars are 10 Australian Dollars.
Monastir has a nice sailing community. At the weekly BBQ .
The Bourguiba mausoleum is a monumental grave in Monastir, which contains the remains of much loved former president Habib Bourguiba, the father of Tunisian independence. He died on April 6, 2000.
The Ribat of Monastir with its Islamic defensive structure
View from the Ribat onto the Marina and our boat
Some street pictures from Monastir.
A quick selfie whilst on the way to Monastir's fruit/vegetable and fish/meat market (open every Saturday).
On the way back from the market, walking through the old town.
We decided to do a 3 days road trip to the South and South-West of Tunisia
We left nice and early and saw many flamingos in the salt lakes
Our first stop was Matmata, which is 340 km South of Monastir (but we ended up doing 600 km all up on our first day).
Matmata is famous for its unusual housing structure, known as “troglodyte, carved in the form of a pit, About 1,200 of the homes have been preserved and some are still used by locals, like the one we visited below.
We saw many troglodytes along the way, some destroyed, some renovated and some serving as hotels.
Hotel Marhala in Matmata.
Pig skin used as drinking bottle. Door is made from Palmtree wood.
Love this picture of this Berber house and a Mosque on top of the hill
Caroline's biggest regret is not making more time to visit Chenini and Tataouine to see the abandoned Berber villages (see below) and additional desert castles called Zsars (used to store harvest). Definitely to be ticked off during our next visit.
We really did not want to do a Camel / Dromedary ride since we both have done it many times before. However, glad we did in Douz. Just the two of us, two dromedaries and a local.
We did not venture to deep into the Sahara.
Four smiling faces
Desert Heart.
Ksours means Castles / singular Ksar and are desert castles (as mentioned earlier) with most of them tucked away in the middle of nowhere. They were used by nomadic people to store their harvest.
They all look a little different some ruins but most still looking fantastic. Below is in Tamazret and is used as a "museum".
Our hotel in Tozeur looked good on picture but was not very nice. The bathroom lights were not working and we showered in the dark. We had to ask for towels and soap. The cost per night was only Aud 20.- (including breakfast). Many of the hotels here were still closed.
We headed out early the next morning.
Below was in Degueche, 150 km from Algeria (we ended up driving further until we were only 15 km from the Algerian border).
Sven walking a long, long way out towards the mountains ... but decided to return after a while. This was at the salt "lakes"
Picture taken from the car, there were hours of this kind of scenery.
Went to the local Zoo in Tozeur which also had an adjoining park
There were not many zoo animals but we were alone and enjoyed our little outing.
We made friends with the Zoo keeper who showed us various specimen and Sven also made a fury friend.
Tamaghza - This old fortified town, along the Oued Horchane, is the largest mountain oasis in Tunisia, It has a canyon and an abandoned old town and is near the boarder of Algeria. Hard to believe that heavy 22 day rains destroyed the village in 1969.
We felt for the many locals trying to sell beautiful "rocks" - there were piles of them everywhere.
Freshwater flows from the nearby hills supplying the village.
Sun lighting up the local mosque (one of 3) with all of them chanting at the same time a bit after 4 am.
The food in Tunisia is nice. Couscous, called Kosksi, is the national dish and is prepared in many ways. We ate dromedary jarra and chicken with couscous. Sometimes we were told our meal is chicken but the bones clearly showed it is dromedary meat. We also liked the typical Tunisian soup (Tunisian shorba frik)
colourful clothing
Smoking hookah or “shisha” in a coffee shop is a pastime in Tunisia, and of course all over the Arab world.
The inside of the Sisha tea house. Sven is not a coffee or tea person but Caroline enjoyed the strong peppermint tea (although it is very sweet).
Walking off our meal and enjoying Tunisian street life (men enjoying their coffees/teas and social catch ups), women no doubt doing the same in their own homes.
Small "fuel stations" can be seen everywhere. It is fuel from Algeria which is sold on the road for about 30 % less than at the official fuel stations.
Male tea culture
Unfortunately our car broke down on the last day of our road trip. So, we explored the town whilst waiting for the "Afrique Assistance".
Sven used the time for a barber trim trusting a man with a knife on this throat!
Fruits in season
Finally the rescue arrived with many cars honking behind us.
Tunisia seems to struggle with their waste (see next to the car). Some household rots on streets and trees...
We walked to the bus station to catch a bus called louage . A louage is a minibus shared with 8 other people, Those with red stripes commute between major cities, whereas the blue and yellow stripes represent regional and rural transportation respectively. We caught a blue stripped bus back to Monastir, then walked back to the Marina.
We bought the seat in between us, since we did not want our back packs going onto the roof. The 4 1/2 hours trip was "interesting". The driver was keen to overtake as many cars as possible and to make the trip as short as possible. Caroline read her Kindle most of the way.. this way she did not have to look at the close misses 😊.
We can't read anything, but just love the Arabic writing. Its like art!
Back in Monastir - Caroline with a local Artist
We watched a stowaway (cat with 3 kittens) trying to hide in the sailing bag of another boat which was preparing to depart. We told the British couple what we saw and they had some trouble getting the protective mother and kittens off their boat. We felt bad to deny her and family access to our own boat.... but we just did not want 4 cats on our boat. The Marina people handled the situation during the night.
Left Monastir early in the morning - we enjoyed spending time here.
We had big waves and strong winds which made our 8 hours sail quite unpleasant and we decided to anchor at Beni Khiar Beach (North of Tunisia), The coast guards called us several times on our way, wanting to know our intentions and finally giving us permission to anchor. They are quite strict (rightly so), due to the current refugee situation.
A fishing boat visited the next morning.
We watched them pulling up their nets which seemed to cover the entire bay ... we kept our fingers crossed, that our anchor is not in their nets. However, as you can see on second picture below.... no such luck this time.... they pulled our anchor out of their net! They remained very friendly and indicated that it is no problem.
Sailed 12 nm back to Hammamet to organise our check out from Tunisia. We decided to stay a night and check out the old town of Hammamet.
It was not a hassle free experience and the market stand sellers were really determined to sell us something (without success). We still enjoyed exploring the side streets.
