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They are a determined bunch the Tunisians.  After all, one of them did once lead an army of elephants over snow-covered mountains to attack Rome. An event still celebrated with street statues and gift shop trinkets. However, I am sure that even mighty Caesar might have opted to take on Hannibal and his formidable pachyderms rather than confront the smooth carpet salesmen that lurk in the busy medina markets. I guess if you can convince Dumbo to snow ski then flogging a rug to a tourist surely is child’s play.

They were called Phoenicians back then, a couple of centuries before the Nativity clocked the calendar over to zero once more. Back in the dark dim past before first the Romans, then the Vandals, Arabs, Spanish, Turks, French, Germans, British and Americans wandered the sands and olive groves and took their turns at running the place.  Each regime leaving its mark ensured the museums and landscapes are full of amazing points of interest from mosaics to minarets. Of course this is no guarantee that those ancient Roman coins or statues on offer in the street markets are any more genuine than the Coco Chanel handbags hanging from the hooks of the store next door. 

We pondered this as we stood inside the labyrinth of carpeting into which we had somehow allowed ourselves to be lured. Our salesman de jour had tossed a selection of carpets across the floor effectively blocking our retreat.

“Very good this one. 150 Dinars.”

Each polite “no thank you” from us was greeted with a plea to view grander treasures deeper within. I raised an eyebrow.

“150 Dinars? For that much I hope that it’s able to fly”

Arabian Nights visions to go with the turned up shoes we had seen earlier for sale.

“Yes, yes.” He smiled with a wink. “But only on the full moon.” 

I gave him a knowing smile. With Ramadan just ending this at least gave him a couple of weeks grace should I wish to test his theory.  By then we would be long gone. The crescent moon now hung in the early evening sky echoing the national flag that fluttered from bunting everywhere you looked.  Red streamers interspersed with presidential posters contrasting with the whitewashed walls and turquoise doors and windows that mirrored the waters of the half moon bay.  With a smile and a side step straight out of a chorus line we dodged the assembling army of touts and disappeared into the Hammamet night.  
We had arrived the night before, bypassing busy Tunis and flying into Monastir a private airport further south near the city of Sousse.  We figured that this was a smart play as we avoided the hustle and bustle of the capital. As an Aussie I had to apply for a visa on entry so spent ten minutes in the customs line then a mind-numbing hour waiting around as my passport was passed from one indifferent cigarette smoking guard to another. We emerged to find our booked resort bus had already departed but managed to haggle a ride on another, along with a tour group of friendly though slightly confused couples from Manchester.

“Whatya mean we’re in Africa, aint we in Greece?”

Hammamet is a town with a split personality.  At one end of the bay is the old French Arabic town complete with its 13th Century Medina, fishing boats beached on the yellow sand framed by white washed buildings.  A short cab ride further down the coast is Yasmine Hammamet, a controlled neighbourhood of holiday resorts and fixed price shopping. Our base camp was the Iberostar Belasair, a plush Spanish resort full of European tourists on all inclusive package holidays, burning themselves to a crisp on banana lounges during the day before joining in the organised activities in the saloon in the evening.  It was like a Carry On movie made by Disney, fortunately escape to the real Tunisia was just out the door.

In hindsight our timing was bad. We had arrived on the second last day of Ramadan, a month long religious fast celebrated by the majority Muslim population during the daylight hours.  This in itself was not the problem rather it was that the two days immediately after its conclusion were public holidays and much of the place, including the tours, shut down. The in-house tour agent assured us that all the internal resort activities, which ranged along a spectrum from the lame to the tedious, would be operating. We took a cab up to Hammamet old town to plot our escape.

In Arabic a Hammam is a bathhouse. The sort of place where you pay to get scrubbed to within an inch of your life, steamed till you prune then an old bloke beats the crap out of you on a trestle table. The Turks were particularly fond of this and in Ottoman times the town was full of bath houses hence the name, Hammamet which basically means place of bath houses.  As the cab pulled up out front of the Hammamet Medina I cracked a gag I had been practising in my head for most of the journey about MC Hammamet and the Funky Cole Medina.  The driver gave me a look that indicated I was probably the 200th tourist who had tried that joke on him. “Lets slip him some Dinar and then go get some dinner.”  I unrepentantly pushed the pun envelope. Cassie mirrored the cabbies look. I shut up.

Funky Cole Medinas - Tunisia 2008
Jedi Sand Castles - Tunisia 2008