Red Adventures: August 2011

Tunisia - Sidi Bou Said and Carthage - July 21-23

Left as scheduled for our sail to Sidi Bou Said (marina) and arrived around 11:30 AM. We started boat laundry and put up the tent to shade us for the day. Since Malta, the weather has been very hot with little wind and the tent has made it bearable for us during the day.

Coming into Sidi Bou Said Harbor

View of Harbor from hilltop village - can you see Grateful Red?

Our makeshift tent to give us shade

. As Ken and I have found, many villages are up a hill from the marina’s that we have stayed in and this village was no different. Village BouSaid is a relatively small area with one main street of shops for the bused in tourists. Internet Café’s are absent here and even the few hotels did not provide for their guests, so our blog updates and emails had to wait.

Cemetary on top of Sidi Bou Said

View looking toward Golfe de Tunis

On Friday, we arranged with our new friend Jaz to have him pick us up and take us to Sidi Bousid, and check out the local souk (Market). As we drove, Jaz gave us a wonderful tour and pointed out many points of interest. Reaching the city, Jaz pointed out the square where the young, unemployed college graduate set himself on fire in protest. Our hope as humble visitors is that their voices will be heard and civil and political grievances will be addressed and some solidarity is found.

National Guard, Police and Military presence are still seen, along with Barbwire barriers

Our visit to a Souk (market)

Our tour through the Souk took us to one of the highest vista’s in the city. To get there we had to walk through a beautiful carpet shop with several floors. When we were on the roof, we heard the calls to prayer which for me, only experiencing it on TV, found it very moving.

Paula with our Tunisian friend Jaz

As we walked back down through the carpet shop, we were invited into one of the “sales” rooms and were given a demonstration and lesson on fine carpet. It soon turned into a sales pitch and Paula found a small carpet that was negotiated on and agreed upon. Paula and Fred left with their package securely wrapped and tied.

On our way home, we decided that Paula and I should take a cab to the Carrfor Supermarket to get some provisions. Being a Friday (a Holy day for Tunisia), no alcohol is sold. We did not know this and realized it might be a dry several days until we reached Spain!

Fred, Paula and Molly ended up taking Jaz and his wife to dinner and Ken and I spent a quiet evening on the boat

The fuel dock that appears to have not been operational for some time!
Saturday, July 23rd, we wanted to leave at 8AM, but found that the harbor master was not in his office (hours posted, but not always observed). We moved the boat to what we thought was the fuel dock to further our departure while we waited for him to show up. The fuel dock had not been in operation for what appeared some time but while we were there waiting, it seems the dock hands were given permission to take our payment for the berth. Ken got our papers from the National Guard and we left for Besirk around 9AM.

Molly at the helm

Winds varied during the day from 10kts to 25kts and we sailed mostly with furled jib.

Tunisia - Sidi Daoud, Visit to Kerkouane

After the Roman Caves, our taxi guide started to take us back to the port. We asked him if he would take us to the Pre-Roman Ruins in Kerkouane. He said he could not and would drop us off in the village before the port and we could get another taxi to take us to Kerkouane. After dropping us off, Molly negotiated for 60 Denar with another taxi to take us to a ATM in Kabalia, then to the Pre-Roman ruins.

Behind trucks loaded with tomatoes going to a cannery

Cannery truck with tomatoes

Entrance to Kerkouane.
I will let Wikipedia explain Kerkouane to you,
Kerkouane (Arabic: كركوان‎; occasionally Kerkuane) is a Punic city in northeastern Tunisia, near Cape Bon. This Phoenician city was probably abandoned during the First Punic War (c. 250 B.C.), and as a result was not rebuilt by the Romans. It had existed for almost 400 years.
Excavations of the town have revealed ruins from the 4th and 3rd Centuries BC. Around the site where the layout is clearly visible, many houses still show their walls, and the coloured clay on the facades is often still visible. The houses were built to a standard plan, in accordance with a sophisticated notion of town planning.
A sanctuary has some columns preserved, and in a small atrium parts of mosaics are found. Curbstones, doorsteps, thresholds, and floors of simple mosaic layers are found all over the ruins. Still archaeologists work on the Kerkouane site, but it is believed that the best parts have already been discovered.
Kerkouane was one of the most important Punic cities, with Carthage, Hadrumetum (modern Sousse) and Utica.

Bathtub in one of the structures. Very advanced water system throughout the ruins

According to my guidebook, many homes were single-story with steps leading to a rooftop terrace. On the floor of several houses, you could see an early form of mosaic known as opus signinum, in which fragments of white stone were inserted amongst the red paving. One house had a beautiful white Tanit (a god) symbol set into the floor.

More mosiac's

Well preserved "hip-bath"

Great example of their great use of stone

Fred, Paula, Kristine & Ken (photo courtesy of Molly!)

It was a very interesting visit to the ruins and we took some time to visit the museum there also. This taxi squeezed all 5 of us in his taxi even though, we assume, he was not supposed to do so. He did NOT want to miss out on our fares.

When we returned to the Port the “men” filled the boat with Diesel, one jerrycan at a time and we made chicken Quesadillas for dinner. We paid 60 Denar per night for our stay and left around 6:45AM to head to Sidi Bou Said Marina, Tunisia.

Tunisia-Sidi Daoud

Tuesday, July 19th, we sailed half of the day and motored half to get around the Cap Bon to Sidi Daoud. Sidi Daoud is home to a very small fishing harbor where they had a Tuna cannery. . The small fishing harbor that also is home to the Sidi Daoud Cannery is stinky and full of flies, but was filled with unknown treasures we were yet to discover.

Giving our passport information to Authorities

We were greeted by the Harbor Master and also met the National Guard and Customs officials. The port authorities went through a very complete check of our passports, the boats paperwork, all our electronics aboard, and various other information they thought they should ask. One of the officials brought his young son who sat quietly on his lap as we were asked to fill out many forms complete with carbon paper for their duplicates. After they left, we seemed to have one or more civilian looking “guards” standing on the Quay 10 feet from our boat. We think they were watching to see if we were going to do any drinking, or maybe they were just plain curious. We kept any “beverages” in cups and produced no cans for them to see in any event.

The Icehouse

Fred and Ken getting our bag of ice

some of the many fishing nets

Checking the weather at the Harbor master's office

Sidi Daoud Cannery in the background

That evening after we secured ice from the main Ice building on the quay, Ken and Fred proceeded to find our their new best friend, Omar. Omar decided that he would offer us something special for a good price, and when his friend produced 2 very large lobsters, we could not refuse! Despite the miserable location at the dock with the flies and smells and the curious, we had a outstanding dinner of all the lobster you could eat, fresh bread and loads of butter. The Tunisians there just stood and watched us as we ate by candle light. After dinner, Ken and Fred walked around the small harbor and apparently were invited by the local fisherman to eat some couscous. It seemed to be quite a honor to be asked so they did not refuse. Ken says that their couscous takes several days to prepare and is highly anticipated.

Discussing price for the two lobsters

One cooked, ready to feast!

Washing the butter off!

Refueling, one can at a time

Wednesday was promising high winds so collectively we made the decision to delay departure for another day and Omar called a taxi to take us to the Roman Caves north of Sidi Daoud. It was a beautiful coast, but the caves were closed because they had been deemed to dangerous (not entirely sure why they still promote them as a tourist site except to get you there to eat at the restaurant). We did eat lunch there and met a very nice couple from Tunis who were on holiday for the week. Jaz (the gentleman) told us that he taught English and was very happy to talk to us in order to keep the English he knew as genuine as possible. He later offered to be our tour-quide if we came to Tunis or Carthage that week Thursday or Friday. We took his number and promised to give him a call if we did so.