Greetings!
This narrative is being written on Monday afternoon, after we drove across the southern end of Tunisia to the town of Touzeur. Check out Monday’s post for a description of what we saw that day.
On Saturday, we drove to Chenini, a unique mountain Troglodytic settlement which was built by fleeing Berbers in the late 19th century seeking protection against Gazzia (Arab tribes) from the north. Utilizing the same cave-dwelling skills their ancestors did in the north to escape lions, they carved into the horizontal sandstone layers below the limestone cliff strata which serves as the floor and ceiling. On the way up the valley leading to the village, it was also evident that they were quite capable of channeling the scant rainwater into damed streams creating holding ponds for agriculture.
Reading the OAT Itinerary, this was a dayhike for which the description scared me. As a result of a fall I took on the pre-trip in Algeria, I’ve been using a borrowed walking stick, and gripping tightly to every stair railing I could find. My left inside thigh is seriously black & blue, and so are my toes on that foot. So when I read in the OAT Itinerary that “Today, we will walk for a total of 3 miles over uneven, slippery terrain, steeply-slopped surfaces, and stairs without railings (not suitable for the use of walking sticks). There willl not be any benches available for resting during this walk.”, I was concerned as it sounded like this was a day I should skip the morning adventure.
Pat was also not feeling well, and eventually decided to sit on a low wall at the bottom of the canyon. I took plenty of photos as I gingerly navigated the pathway with my stick, stopping much too frequently and falling behind the group’s pace. Thus, I bailed out of the walk about halfway up, and went directly to the ending point restaurant at the opposite end of one of the switchback legs. I got there only a few minutes before the group arrived, proclaiming it got easier from just ahead of where I turned back. Oh well, the settlement was clearly well worth visiting.
The complete ingenuity and cleverness of a tribe of Berbers which I had previously understood to be only capable of guiding sheep and staying alive, was enlightening.
We then drove to the current town nearby, which served as the shooting location for the galactic planet town of “Tataoonie" in an episode of George Lucas’s “Star Wars - the Phantom Menace”. Most of us were old enough to remember the scenes which were displayed throughout the small strange houses. After lunch at a local restaurant, we drove back to our hotel in the real Tatauoine.
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