Half a cup of tea later, we ventured out into the fitful sunlight to catch a bus from the piazza just outside the opening to the hostel/caravan park. The bus was there, so we hurried to a shop nearby to buy tickets (“um…le…vende…bigletto per le…bus?” I hazarded. Most of my pretend Italian is guesswork), and hopped onto the bus. The drivers of these improbably big blue coaches have our undying admiration, for the feats of spacial awareness/optimism on these teensy little windy roads. So off we went, barrelling casually down little roads I would’ve been sweating to squeeze little Nettle down.

The driver alerted us to our arrival in the town of Bomerano, where today’s hike to Positano started. Our plan was to have “lunch” first — lunch for normal people, breakfast for us. We hopped out and almost immediately spotted a pizzeria (called, oddly, “Crazy Burger”), and popped our heads into the quiet restaurant — “le aperto per pranzare?”. I either got the pronunciation wrong, or entirely mis-constructed the sentence and said something disparaging about the restauranteur’s mother, but he spoke English and rescued us (or himself), introducing himself as Tony and presenting us with a menu while asking us where we were from.

Tony was, of course, very friendly and helpful, and proposed that he put something together for us, given that there were a few ingredients out of season, and he didn’t buy from the market because the vegetables there had “medicine” on them (he meant pesticides, etc, of course, but I liked ‘medicine’. Like antibiotics for plants?). They grew or made everything, and it was all organic — even the wine, he grew on his farm and made himself.

He brought us bottles of his red and white wine — we really liked the red; the white was a little sweet for Katherine and it was a bit cold for white for me — then brought out some wonderfully wholesome-looking pizzas with dark green leafy stuff that was a bit like a cross between broccoli and cabbage, quite tasty. He’d put chopped home-made sausage on Katherine’s (I’d explained that I was vegetarian in advance), which turned out to be a little daunting for Katherine’s almost-vegetarian stomach. She hid the pieces in a napkin (a meat parcel), which we smuggled discreetly out in my pocket later.

After finishing up with a coffee, we bid Tony farewell, and he pointed us to the piazza where the three hour hike started. The cobbled path led down away from the town, across an aquaduct and along a paved road that led around a cut ledge in a steep hillside. There was a beautiful view over craggy cliff-faces, and the tiered slopes that led down to the sea, dotted with orange roofs of farmhouses and covered with the frameworks on which vines would grow again when the season turned.

A cliff rose on the other side of the road, and drops of water pattered down all around us as they trickled down from the damp trees above. Staring up, they looked like a starfield (like that old Windows screensaver); we had fun trying to catch them as they fell, perfect spheres until they splattered on our hands (or foreheads, when we missed).

We followed the path onwards as it narrowed; we were greeted with the clip-clop of horses hooves, and met a guy and a horse coming the other way, loaded up with logs.

A few paces further around, we heard scrabbling hooves and watched aghast as another horse, loaded up with logs, lost its footing as it attempted the slippery concrete steps and fell forward, hitting its forehead on the ground. It struggled upright again, and continued on stoically as we felt for the poor beast! As we walked on we heard a clatter and turned back to see a horse-shoe coming to rest on the ground where it fell.

The path become rougher as we went on, passing tiered vine-growing ground wherever there was a vaguely non-vertical surface.

We passed through a little village and were met with the sight of the rest of the peninsula, with the island of Capri at its tip. Beautiful!

We caught our first glimpse of Positano as we rounded the hill and scrabbled up the rocky path, which then descended into wood that reminded Katherine of Belgrave, where I grew up, and where Katherine and I lived for a time, house-sitting.

The path eventually led into the outskirts of civilisation again, and so began the steps.

Thousands and thousands of steps! Well, at least we’re getting our much-needed exercise!

Many, many steps later, we reached the main road (to our slight surprise — we seemed to have somehow deviated from our walk directions), and followed it the final kilometer or so to the soaring town of Positano.

(Goats by the path)

We made a beeline to the store Katherine had been longing to revisit after our last visit here, and were dismayed to find it closed down! So, instead we stopped into the first café we found for tea and cake (we’d earned it, dammit!). It was quite busy, full of wonderful, musical Italian being spoken around us.

A quick peek at the bus timetable we’d brought with us spurred us into action, to try to catch the sooner bus rather than get the one several hours later. So, for the second time in Positano, we found ourselves hurrying up the many, many steps to catch a bus, remembering fondly our last time here with Tim, Jen and Annie (who we miss greatly!). We climbed as the lights of the town came on, and the daylight faded; somewhere, church bells rang.

We arrived at the bus stop, shortly after realising that we had hurried for no reason, as we still had ten minutes — I seemed to be having a problem with time for most of day. Sorry, Katherine’s jelly legs. What’s more, our timetable seemed to be out of date, and it was forty minutes or so sitting in the chill of evening before the bus swung around the corner.

We sat up the front and were, as always, thoroughly entertained by the superhuman feats of the driver who sped along the windy roads, sometimes coming to a quick stop to edge past an oncoming car, sometimes just speeding past with centimetres of room to spare, chatting and gesticulating amiably the whole time with some passengers sitting around us at the front.

When we arrived in Amalfi, I asked the driver about the bus that’d take us to San Lazzaro, and he told us it’d be coming at 8:20-something. It may have been 8:40 something — again, time had been giving me a bit of trouble. Either way, we were standing out in the freezing night for another good forty minutes or so before a likely-looking bus appeared and we gratefully approached.

I asked if this was the bus to Agrigento, which got a laugh, for reasons I didn’t understand until later, I realised in my cold-addled state I’d asked after a town in Sicily. Dumb tourist. Luckily, I had clarified with “San Larazzo”, which the driver and a nearby helpful passenger luckily understood as meaning San Lazzaro and indicated that this was in fact the correct bus. Yep, Katherine needs to stop me saying stupid things.

So, anyway, we finally made it back home, huddled round the header and Katherine made a basic but satisfying pasta to fill our empty bellies.

Katherine: Hmm. I think you should write more about my pain. I thought I was going to die going up those stairs, man!

We’ve had a very quiet week or so, hanging around in our pretty little caravan park in San Lazzaro, working on projects, getting over a mysterious bout of food poisoning — just Katherine, oddly, not me. During a phone call to my mother (our knowledgeable consultant on all things), she revealed that apparently I have had an iron stomach since infancy. No vomitous childhood for me. Good to know!

I hate being the well one, I can’t stand the sympathy and concern. Give me the food poisoning any day.

We had an interesting dumb-tourist time posting off some long-overdue-to-be-posted gifts to Australia, working entirely on my guesswork while attempting to communicate with the post office staff. Our first attempt was thwarted when we were told, possibly, that we needed to return the following day. Or possibly the package wouldn’t go out until the next day. Or maybe it was the post office staff member’s birthday the following day. It really could’ve been anything, but she had “no” face, so we figured whatever the reason, we should return the following day. Possibly with a birthday cake.

We diligently (slightly guiltily) listened to a Pimsleur Italian lesson when we got home. We’ll be fluent any day now.

Our second attempt was more successful: We were given envelopes to put the packages in and address, and handed them back, addressed and filled with packages, and were told something about tomorrow – domani! I know domani! Either that or those great rice-wrapped-with-vine-leaf Greek snacks, but I doubted that was what she meant. I attempted to mime returning tomorrow, and was rewarded with assent. Unusual, but okay; we said grazie, ciao! and started walking back, only to be called back by a customer who hurried after us — oops. Another dumb tourist moment. They were kind to us, though, and weighed the packages and presented us with the grand total — yeesh, that’s expensive postage. We didn’t have enough cash, and they wouldn’t take credit card, so we asked if there was a bancomat nearby, and were pointed off down the street.

We followed the street for a while, and reached the end of the ’shops’ part of town; the rest looked residential (but very pretty — this is a lovely town). I spotted a woman in an Italian post uniform, and asked her in Italian if she knew where a bancomat was. Mercifully, her husband, Michael, worked in a car dealership right there, and spoke English — he was quite friendly, and explained the bank was a good three kilometers down the road. Oh.

We spoke briefly, and we parted with the suggestion of a coffee in the piazza sometime, and headed back to the post office having since discovered that we actually did have just enough, including our coins. That was lucky! So, all sorted, bewilderment notwithstanding.

At some stage we spotted the date, and got a little shock — is it really March already? Our plans were to make our way across Italy and France, arriving back in the UK in late May, but that’s just 10 or so weeks away!

I find myself cursing the 90 day limit of the Schengen visa arrangement, even if it’s the same agreement that lets us do this at all; Katherine’s found the plus side, which is that such a time limit pushes us to keep moving — otherwise we may just get stuck! She’s probably right.

We may need to adjust our plans to see France, though! Given that we’ll be back in Northern Italy around September to visit the Alps in hiking season, we may be able to do France properly then. That gives us more time in Italy to travel at our slow, slow pace.

Using my brilliant new-found POI database and Google Earth, I found us a caravan park (actually, a hostel, Beata Solitudo, with attached camping facilities) right in the thick of it, about 3km as the crow flies (but 16 switchbacked kilometers as the Nettle drives!) from Amalfi, in a town called San Lazzaro.

Google Earth suggested a drive up through the outskirts of Naples and back down into San Lazzaro, but I didn’t want a bar of it; it was only a tiny bit further taking the coastal road, and it would be infinitely more enjoyable, adventure on the narrow roads notwithstanding.

So off we went, taking the motorway back towards Salerno, then veering off along the road clinging to the steep hillside over Salerno, which sprawled prettily way below us. It was heavily overcast, a decidedly grey day, but something about the cloud cover made the diffuse daylight appear as it was coming from low in the sky, which made it seem like a perpetual early morning, even in the middle of the day.

Our luck stayed with us as we negotiated the few tricky intersections, squinting at the map on my iPhone, and picked the correct route each time — except once, when the map’s blue dot indicting our location wandered slightly off (I think it gets bored sometimes), and told us we were somewhere else. We make a wrong turn, heading towards a pretty-yet-narrow cobbled street on Salerno’s eastern side, but easily did a U-turn (with guidance from a friendly police officer who happened to be beside us) and continued on.

Almost immediately, the road took to the edge of the coast, following the buttress-like spits of land that jut out into the ocean, with the occasional hairpin or bridge over a river valley.

Every turn brought new exclamations from us — such a feast for the eyes. The coastline itself was extremely pretty — craggy cliffs and bits of exposed rock poking out of the lush greenery, precipitous slopes down to blue water (even with an overcast sky), the higher reaches wreathed in cloud. With the addition of the delightful little villages nestled into each valley, often with tiers of vines climbing the steep valley walls, the place was just amazing.

Last time we were here, we’d taken a bus along this road, from Sorrento (to the west) to Amalfi and back. At the time, we’d marvelled at the narrow roads that the big buses barrelled down, honking their horns at each hairpin to let oncoming vehicles know they were there. We’d decided then there was no way we’d be driving the route in Nettle. Ah, but we’ve come so far since then! In fact, it was quite relaxed and thoroughly enjoyable — it was certainly tight driving, and I was swinging the steering wheel around the entire time, often doing my don’t-look-at-the-oncoming-vehicle routine (the way I see it, it’s like throwing a ball — if I focus on what I don’t want to run into, I’ll probably veer that way). At once point while passing a large van, there was a thud as the edge of the right mirror flicked against a bit of a stairwell, but no damage. Piece of cake.

Once we had passed through Amalfi, we took a right turn towards our destination (which was actually quite close, high above us). We continued winding upwards and suddenly we were in an impenetrable fog. Oncoming cars would loom out of nowhere, twin points of their headlights the only warning. It was wonderful and atmospheric; white nothingness off the edge of the road, except the odd skeletal tree poking up. Once, we paused momentarily, staring out over the sea we could only just glimpse below us though the roiling clouds, and when we turned back to the front, we caught a glimpse of a whimsical looking tower poking through the mist before it was enveloped again. Magical. The whole thing reminded me of some of the scenery in Half Life 2, oddly (particularly Ravenholm).

We made a right turn onto a steep little side road, which we barely made it up, tires slipping on the wet surface the whole way, then picked our way though the maze-like villages, skeletal trees looming out of the fog, deep green grass beneath them, and lots of adorable brick cottages with red roofs. It was so damp and green and rural we felt like we were back in beautiful Ireland.

The trusty iPhone led us to the caravan park, and I met the owner who welcomed us in. We had lunch of tasty leftovers, and then I went and spoke with the friendly English-speaking owner about local activities — he gave us a huge amount of information on hikes we could do, which sound absolutely fantastic. Looks like we’ll be walking to Positano from here, a few-hours walk with great views along the coast, apparently. Can’t wait.

For now, though, we’re hanging out in Nettle, heater on against the cold, the wind howling outside, sometimes rocking us from side to side; every now and then, a church bell rings atmospherically, even in the middle of the night. To our chagrin, there’s no 3G here either, but the EDGE is very good, and the laptop has a night ahead of it of gathering new episodes of TV shows we’ve missed!

We love Italy!

All fuelled up (Katherine: …and feeling a little queasy), we headed out to attempt a few items on our to-do list, then realised it was Sunday. Damn!

Desperately in need of some essential groceries, we wandered until we spotted a little deli, and stopped in to pick up a big hunk of provolone cheese and parmesan, some eggs, bread, and a couple of other bits and pieces. The friendly shopkeeper was kind enough to look impressed by my “questo pane” when I asked for some bread. We need to work on our Italian!

Then underneath the railway bridge with “Ti amo” written all over it, something we see everywhere (a very amorous people, the Italians), and a stroll along the foreshore to Nettle.

I’d previously identified an area attrezzata (I forget that term and have to look it up every time), an ‘agriturismo’ called Il Giardino in a little town 45 minutes north east of Salerno, Contursi Terme. I called ahead, then we set off down the motorway, gasping with delight as every turn in the road brought us spectacular new scenery. I was very impressed by the craggy mountains in the distance, wreathed in clouds and dusted with snow (Katherine shrugged – I suspect she may have been thinking wistfully of Mount Etna).

We left the motorway and picked our way carefully along a tiny little country track, bounded by delightful farmland and cottages. Then, we saw the place, pulled into the car park that would be home for the next couple of days, and I jumped out to make our presence known.

The manager/owner sorted us out, and while he was taking down our passport details, an English-speaking relative dropped by to say hello, with a curious twang to his accent — His name was Antonio, and he’d lived for five years in Melbourne — in fact, not so far from our old neighbourhood in Carlton. His accent was very inner Melbourne Italian; he was very friendly, loud and likeable, and gave us his phone number to call should we need anything.

We had ourselves an insanely satisfying lunch of the bread and cheese we’d bought earlier, with some olive oil and the dregs of our balsamic vinegar.

We spent the evening and the following couple of days quietly working on our projects in Nettle. We must seem very strange to outsiders, arriving in a beautiful new place then sitting inside our car all day. We don’t even open our awning and sit outside! Nettle’s just so cosy, and our projects so compelling.

The weather was cold and grey, and very rainy, some nights with wild thunderstorms, and we felt wonderful and cosy, and ecstatic to be in Italy. Unfortunately, after pining for 3G all the time we were in Tunisia, there was only quite poor EDGE reception available, so, no new TV shows for us. Very sad.

After a couple of days, we ventured out. We walked alongside and over a raging river, brown with silt, then up the mossy stairs amongst the pine trees to Contursi Terme, perched atop a hill.

We wandered along the backstreets of the town, and found a little deli to pick up some more supplies (read: cheese). The shopkeepers were delightful and asked us about where we were from and how we liked the place. While they were going through the groceries we’d chosen, they kept saying “You don’t pay for this”, giving us various items for free. They were lovely!

We ended up with quite a lot of groceries, but we’d brought the back-pack and we loaded me up for the rest of our walk through the pretty town.

We were thrilled with the charm of the little town, and kept repeating “Ahh! Italy!” to each other as we walked through the cute little alleys, up a few flights of stairs to the main street. We hadn’t managed to find onions at the last place, and when we found another little supermarket, and asked for ‘cipolle’ (which I’d just looked up on my iPhone), the woman working there actually left the store to bring us some, because they didn’t have any! And then she gave them to us for free. Italians are so lovely!

We walked back down through the main street and back down the hill to Nettle, for a lunch of wine, cheese, bread and olive oil.

We spent another couple of days working, then it was time to move on. Katherine made a new friend as we were working up to leaving, an adorable black kitten who was very friendly (of course, she’s Italian!). She nuzzled and purred and chewed on our fingers for a while as we sat in the middle of the car park and played with her.

After playfully toying with the idea of staying another day to play with the kitten, we decided it was time, said farewell to the Il Giardino folks, and headed off.

I couldn’t find a solution that was sufficiently satisfactory to lure us away from paid, powered sites. If we get desperate, we may buy a generator one day, though.

For powering our two laptops, I considered fuel cells, solar, pedal power and a generator that was recommended to us.

Example usage

See ‘Laptop power usage‘ below for notes on power usage. Figures are pessimistic, erring on the side of greater power consumption. Inverter overhead is ignored, with the assumption that we’d find a 12V power supply instead.

Heavy use

Moderate use

Options

Efoy fuel cell

• EFOY 900 provides 900 Wh/day: £2,195 ($3800 AUD)
• 10 litre fuel cartridge: £38.81 ($67 AUD) ($6.70/litre)
• 1.1 litres of fuel per kWh output
• Typical 800 Wh day: 0.88 litres = $5.90/day

Bike-based generator

• Windstream make a Bike Power Generator for US$595 ($667 AUD) (BYO Bike)
• Produces ~150W while pedalling
• To produce 800 Wh: 5.3 hours of pedalling.
• To produce 595 Wh: 4 hours of pedalling.
• Maybe we can capture passers-by and make them pedal.

Solar

• 140W solar panel: £1,250 ($2,163 AUD)
• Using the rule of thumb of 0.3 * rated capacity = amp hours/day: 42 Ah/day (60% of 70Ah, or 95% of 49 Ah)
• Or, assuming 5 hours of sunlight per day, and 50% output from the panel:  350 Wh/day (29Ah) (40% of 800Wh or 59% of 595Wh).
• 2 x 140W panels may satisfy the requirements, but are too expensive, and there may not be room on the roof

Generator

• Honda EU10i: £537-580 (~$1000 AUD)
• Rated at 1kW, and runs for 8.5 hours at 1/4 load (250W, presumably) with a 2.3L tank.
• If motorhome’s battery charger runs at 20A, would need to run for 3.5 hours a day to replace 70 Ah, or 2.5 hours/day to replace 50 Ah.
• That is, a little over 1L fuel/day for 70Ah days, or 0.7L/day for 50Ah days.  If fuel is ~£0.9/L ($1.55 AUD), that’s $1.55 or $1.08/day.

Summary

• Fuel cell: Too expensive
• Bike generator: More exercise than anyone should ever have to put up with. That just can’t be healthy.
• Solar: Too expensive, logistical issues fitting 2 panels
• Generator: Viable, aside from environmental issues (fuel usage + sound pollution)

Our conclusion: We’ll just stay in caravan parks/CLs/Aree Attrezzatas/etc. Or kidnap a vagrant and set him to pedalling.

(Busker in Salerno)

We awoke in the late morning, after a wonderful sleep, to the cosy sound of rain on the roof, washing all the salt from the long voyage off Nettle’s flanks.

We had nice and hot, refreshing showers, and by the time we were all dressed and ready to head out, the rain had stopped and a cautious sun was peeking through the clouds. Oh, what a feeling to be looking forward to spending a day out in the world!

We were parked about a half hour’s walk from Salerno’s centre, and the walk along the foreshore was lovely. We marvelled at everything, soaking it all in — with a little bit of wry joking here and there: Ah! Solid footpaths! With people walking on them, instead of on the road! Finished buildings! Not a bare concrete wall or patch of bare dirt in sight! No one staring at us, asking for money or alcohol, or sleazing up to Katherine!

More earnestly, we were charmed with this pretty little town. Our last time in Salerno, we were here just briefly, passing through on the way south. At the time, we were still a trifle shell-shocked at the rather unpalatable urban sprawl of Naples, and didn’t really give Salerno much of a chance. This time around, though, we opened our eyes and were impressed. The beautiful hills that marked the southern end of the stunning Amalfi coast loomed over the town, making me feel like we were walking through a pretty matte painting. The delightful canyon-like alleyways, packed with interesting shops, cafés and restaurants, as well as immaculately-dressed friendly Italians, brought big smiles to our faces.

Our first stop in Salerno was a café for breakfast: A nice little place with a warm wooden interior, a counter with lots of exciting looking pastries; we grabbed a couple of croissants and cappuccinos and sat at a table. We enjoyed our coffees so much, we ordered two more.

Fed, coffee’d and feeling good, our next task was to grab some credit with Wind and get our mobile Internet access up and running. We’d taken so long with sleeping in and having breakfast, though, that everything had closed for the afternoon — Those 1:30-4:30 closing hours will take a bit of getting used to. We did find an open wi-fi network just outside the Wind shop, though, so we jumped online and I looked up the info I thought I’d need to set up the SIM cards once we had credit, which we could buy anywhere.

With the shops closed, we wandered aimlessly through the delightful little cobbled streets of the town.

I said a cheerful “Ciao!” to a woman in her late 60’s or early 70’s we passed, and she stopped and said a very friendly “ciao!” back, and asked us where we were from, how long we were staying, and if we’d seen the Amalfi coast, then when we parted, warmly bid us many wishes! Katherine and I grinned at each other — we love Italy!!.

We walked back to Nettle to pass the couple of hours until the shops opened again. On the way I bought a little Wind credit, hoping to set up one SIM card (we have two, one to use with a volume-based plan, to stay online doing low-volume stuff, and one to use with a time-based plan, to do lots of downloading with). No go, though — I couldn’t figure out the Italian system, so I postponed until we could visit the Wind store again.

We ventured out again later (after carefully checking our appearance — very high fashion standards here!), and headed straight to Wind; thankfully, one of the assistants there spoke a little English, and with the help of a little sketching on a pad we brought along, we managed to work out how to make it happen: We bought a new SIM card and activated the 4.5 Gb/month plan, and got a little extra credit to activate the 100 hours/month plan on the other SIM card we had. Sorted! We couldn’t wait to start catching up on all the TV and film we’d missed!

We wandered on, in search of a couple of things. We were delighted to find a little home-wares shop with impressively cheap throw-rugs; we bought two, to keep us warm during the cool evenings.

Evening had fallen and Salerno looked magical with the lights from shops spilling out onto the cobbled streets, while buskers played accordions. For dinner, we found a pizza restaurant after a little wandering: A tiny, brightly lit place called O’Spicule one street back from the foreshore towards the town’s western side, near an old church. We took a seat beside some locals; the menu was a bit cryptic, with no descriptions — always a good sign. Katherine ordered a Siciliana, and I asked for “qualcosa vegetariano” (mangled Italian for “something vegetarian”). Katherine’s Siciliana turned out to be eggplant on a tomato base, and mine was, amazingly, lettuce. It was basically the best pizza we’ve ever had, quite possibly the equal of Sharamanika in Sicily. The lettuce pizza was our favourite — who knew lettuce could work on pizza? It was extremely garlicky, and absolutely brilliant.

Astonishingly, our two pizzas, plus two glasses of wine and a coke to satisfy Katherine’s craving came to €8 in total. About $12 AUD, with the current brilliant exchange rate. That’s the same or less than we would’ve paid for a meal in Tunisia! Our whole day had been full of surprises about how cheap everything was. Amazing.

So, full of fantastic pizza and feeling like Italy has given us the best welcome we could’ve hoped for, we happily wandered home along the foreshore.

Aah. Italy, vi amiamo.

We finished up our final tasks, which including emptying the black water cassette into the nasty pit supplied, which was a particularly unpleasant experience when a splashback from the poorly-designed emptying facility hit me in the face!!! Freaking hell! Much washing of my face followed. (It was to become one of the more pleasant experiences of the day!)

We hit the road, marvelling for the last time at the antics of the other drivers; our favourite was taking a shortcut, going around a roundabout the wrong way, and even one car doing a U-turn at a roundabout rather than going around, nearly running into an oncoming car in the process. Please don’t run into our motorhome, I kept repeating in my head. We both had that nervous feeling, the same we get before an international flight, about something going wrong and missing the ferry.

But we made it unscathed to our favourite town in the world, La Goulette. We were met by an attendant who helped us through the check-in procedure and directed us to the queue of cars waiting to enter the port.

That was a mercy — trying to navigate that would’ve been very difficult. Then, he asked for a tip, putting on an unpleasant sooky-puppy-dog face; I gave him the few coins we had left, then he indicated it wasn’t enough, or wasn’t in the right currency or something. He tried to get us to exchange our money though him, telling us the banks are closed and they are greedy. Right.

He said a bunch of other stuff that passed us by, and simply wouldn’t let up. Katherine later observed how, when we indicated that we didn’t understand him, he would simply talk louder and louder, rather than slowing down or breaking it down into more easily understood portions. Funny being on the other side of that, given that English speakers tend to do that to foreigners all the time.

Having got outside Nettle with him, I just walked away from him, and luckily, wasn’t followed. I asked a security guard at the gate if I could exchange currency once we got inside, and after being told we could, headed back to Nettle for the wait.

The tip guy returned and badgered us for a little longer. We couldn’t wait to get away from Tunisia and its plentitude of creeps, that’s for sure. For the purposes of peace I offered a five-dinar coin, which he just sniffed at, and asked for a note. The small change we’d given him earlier, plus the five dinar coin come to about seven dinars, so, he wants a note, let him have a tenner; I asked him for our change back, telling him I’d then give him a note. He put about half a dinar in my hand. Um. The tool wasn’t going to get away with that. I told him we’d given him about seven dinars, and he finally capitulated and handed over the rest. Then I gave him the tenner, and — big surprise — the guy sniffed at that too. “Un billet rouge“, he said, meaning a 20 DT note. This prompted some delicious aggression in very good French from Katherine. I shut the window.

After about an hour, some cars started shuffling around in front of us; Not trusting anyone to tell us when it was time to board, I sought out someone official-looking to ask if it was time. Yes, it was. We headed forward in Nettle, and as we approached the gate, were instead sent off to one side and not through. It turns out it wasn’t time after all. Okay.

The ferry’s departure time came and went, as cars and trucks streamed through the gate beside us, and we got increasingly anxious. Had they forgotten us? Did our greedy new friend have some buddies working the gates who were getting revenge? I headed back out on foot to again ask one of the staff if everything was fine. They nodded — “Oui, attendez.”.

Our worries weren’t entirely assuaged, having seen something like an hour pass already since the ferry was meant to depart, but we were eventually waved through the gate.

We pulled over and I jumped out with passports in hand, with little idea of what to expect next. We had a great deal of confusion with our visa in the first month here, first being told that we could get a 3 month visa at the border, then upon arrival being told no such thing was possible, and that we had to get visas one month at a time, at the local police station. Finally, we were told that we needed no visa at all, and instead paid 10 dinars per week we were in-country. The latter came from the visa desk at the Tunis airport, so we stuck with that.

Upon presenting our passports to an official at the dock, he vaguely beckoned me to follow, and handed over to a police officer at the visa bureau. I told him about the ten-dinar-per-week thing, and he sought out his superior and showed him our visas. The superior, an arrogant, self-important-looking guy, said something in curt Arabic, which the other guy translated: “Why have you overstayed your visa?”. Brilliant.

Again, I recounted what we had been told at the airport visa office, and was berated with “Why didn’t you visit a police station?”. Calmly, I explained that we had visited several police stations, including the one at the airport who had led us to the visa office. Incomprehensible muttering followed, until I brought out the 160 dinars I had determined was the fee, and their eyes lit up: “Ah, trés bien”.

The younger officer directed me to wait while our passports were stamped. He told me “You should give the boss a big present!”. I laughed it off uncomfortably and waited. He returned a few minutes later, showed me into his superior’s office, and said again, “Okay, a present for the boss, now”. Big joke, laugh it off; I sat down in the foyer again. One last time, he tried it — “A present, for the boss”; I put a vague expression on my face, and managed to successfully avoid the situation; the superior gave the passports to another officer for processing, while I went and exchanged our money into Euros.

Finally, it was done — I had our passports in hand, with all the appropriate stamps and a great sigh of relief.

Back to Nettle for another half hour or so; another foray out to make sure everything was still okay — I could barely get a word out of the curt staff member I actually found to ask, but I gathered that the ferry was still loading, and we were in the correct place.

The few of cars that were strewn around in front of us shuffled forward, and we moved forward too. We finally reached the concourse along the waterfront, two ferries tied up further down the dock, and an official asked for our paperwork, which we presented. “Un petit probléme,” he said, slightly apologetically. We needed an export stamp for Nettle. Nice of them to let us know, at the last minute.

Feeling panicky, watching the last few cars progress along the dock towards the ferry, we swung around in a U-turn, and I ran out to find another official to do whatever needed to be done. I found one in a dockside café, waved the offending piece of paper at him, and he joined me outside and took a quick look inside Nettle and underneath, presumably checking for stowaways. He scribbled something on the piece of paper, then pointed vaguely back through the docks the way we had originally come, and told me to find “un petit bureau” (a little office).

All of the booths beside the entranceway were closed, and not a person was in sight; I asked an official outside the police office where to go, and he pointed vaguely ahead. I remembered our rather uncomfortable entrance to Tunisia, and the set of offices we passed through to get Nettle’s paperwork done, and I headed back there. While I was running, I noticed the obnoxious mute man that had taken us though the entrance bureaucracy when we first arrived, and steadfastly pretended I hadn’t seen him; I think he recognised me, as he grunted as I ran past and thumped the side of a building to try to get my attention.

The first official I waved my piece of paper at unhelpfully tapped his shoulder and indicated I should find the captain. No such individual was in sight, so I tried again, and asked another official. He showed me into a smoky office, where the official behind the desk took the piece of paper, put a stamp in my passport, and waved me off. I guess that’s it.

A sprint back to Nettle. Katherine told me later that while I was gone, the official who had stopped us on the waterfront concourse had attempted to hit on her in my absence, asking if she was married, and was she travelling with her brother?

We joined the end of a line of cars, and I verified that we were in the correct place — a big sigh of relief when we found all was well, and the ferry was still being loaded. Another couple of passport checks, a quick search again (these people love double-handling), and we were waved onto the ship.

We locked up and headed up onto the passenger deck, feeling light-headed and a bit shaky with relief, hunger, and the toll the stresses of the evening had taken. Thankfully, the onboard restaurant was open, and we found ourselves a surprisingly inexpensive and decent meal.

Exhausted, we sought out the “pullman seats” we had booked. An attendant showed us to them, and we stared in disbelief — they were either side of the aisle; one had a sleeping man sprawled at it’s foot.

We found the attendant again and asked if there were any other seats free that we could claim — no such luck. There were shelves for baggage at the front of the room; I eyed one alcove speculatively, and thought I could curl up there for the night. Katherine had a better idea; the two seats beside her were claimed with some stray items of clothing, but I moved the jumper on the seat beside her over, and sat down there, just for now. We leaned against each other and tried to shut our eyes against the glare of the room’s lighting.

Then our luck found us — the prior occupant of the seat I was in returned; I excused myself and offered the seat back, and he smiled and shook his head, taking the clothing off the seat and the one beside, freeing up all three seats for us! Hoorah!

So, we lay back and slept fitfully, taking turns to shift around, waking when people opened the door right in front of us (but enjoying the breeze through the door which briefly mitigated the stifling heat of the room). But at least we had somewhere to be!

We gave up around 9am, and ventured back to the deck for a coffee and croissant. Soon after, land appeared outside the window, and we walked out to lean against the railing in the warm breeze and watch as the ferry was ushered into the docks of Palermo. Ah, Palermo, our old friend. We felt wonderful, gazing out at Sicily, flooded with happy memories. We wondered how Mount Etna was looking, covered in snow.

We found a table inside again and watched some old So You Think You Can Dance episodes for a while. Every now and then there were high-volume announcements made in Italian, and after the third, I thought we best find out what they were about, and headed towards reception to find someone to ask in English/French. The staff member I found said it was a call for all passengers to passport control, and to hurry because they wanted to leave! I ran back to get Katherine and our passports, and just as we were returning, an announcement was made calling for something-something-Tai-Sono-é-something-Hai-rah-mahn — they were calling us! So, we were the last to have our passports stamped, as the officials joked with us about my name (Mike Tyson, that old chestnut). I recognised one of the officials from our departure from Sicily, months ago.

It was a very long day; we both felt pretty rough from the poor sleep we’d had. The deck was almost empty of people now, and we claimed a choice spot on a bench in the corner, where we could spread out and lie down. A group of loud Arabic men were playing an unfamiliar but entertaining-looking card game for most of the day; we became a little irritated with them towards the end, with their periodic loud shouting. Quiet down, you lot!

Arrival time came and went. Eventually, around midnight, lights appeared out the window, and we had arrived! After a bit of a wait, we found our way back to the car deck, and wearily but delightedly returned “home”. We drove down the ramp, to the inspection area. An ununiformed Italian women asked us something about cigarettes, and made a smoking gesture — was she asking us for cigarettes?? Nope — she was just asking if we were importing any, or any alcohol. We were relieved and happy to be clear of begging, clutching Tunisian dock staff!

A quick stop in to the office to make sure we were all sorted with our Schengen visas, and we were done. 10 minutes tops.

A little giddy, we drove out of the dock and through familiar-looking Salerno — Italy! I spotted the area sosta I’d researched, and we pulled in, a little surprised to find it a run-down looking car park littered with dead cars, but a little too tired to care. It’s fine! We sank gratefully into our own bed and fell asleep.

There were lots of little birds around us, including a fascinating long-beaked guy that Katherine thought might’ve been a woodpecker, which was later confirmed by my bird-watcher mother (K-bomb strikes again).

One day we discovered long ‘ropes’ of caterpillars, following each other nose-to-tail, reminding me of those rat families who get around together by grabbing each others’ tails in their mouths. They all moved in almost-synchronised jerks (Katherine decided they were pop-locking; I think we’ve been watching too much So You Think You Can Dance).

We watched them for ages, fascinated; as I got close with the camera, I think I might have upset the leader caterpillar (the leaderpillar), who got a little confused and did a U-turn, which confused the guy behind him; the whole thing degenerated into chaos, a big bundle of confused caterpillars. Oops. I broke them. Katherine: “You guys are bird food.“.

We were reassured later when we discovered a tangle that had righted itself, becoming a line once more, snaking across the ground. Where were they all going? As a computer scientist, I’m always fascinated by that group/emergent behaviour, and wondered about what provision was in their natures that allowed them to rescue themselves from a tangle.

A resident cat befriended/took ownership of us, and dropped by for a spot of nuzzling and purring.

The other weird critter thing at that place was a donkey that we never actually saw, but heard every day when there was a drawn out screech/grinding sound, like a huge piece of machinery, or what we’d imagine a dinosaur would sound like! Then the familiar hee-haw followed for a while. It was weird.

The one negative about the place was the toilet/shower block, which was horrendous — we just used Nettle’s facilities. Euch! This was probably a good thing — it means we probably picked the most appropriate caravan park in Tunisia to stay at for the first two months! Yay!

We’ve done a bit of work on our respective projects; As well as ongoing projects, I’ve started a new iPhone application which should be a quick one, but should prove to be extremely useful! I can’t wait to start using it.

We’ve also done some preparation for our re-entrance to Italy (Hooray!). I installed Google Earth and was thrilled to find a bunch of GPS POI (Point Of Interest) databases for caravan parks, aires for servicing Nettle, and very excitingly, our favourite: Area Attrezzatas (actually, I think it might be aree attrezzata), which are those more casual camping facilities that are attached to other businesses, like wineries, farms or restaurants (sometimes they’re just called sosta campers too, which usually refers to just a service facility, not a place to stay overnight). They’re invariably much cheaper, and frequently much nicer than caravan parks. A little data massaging, and I brought them into Google Earth. Now we can find them on the map! This represents quite a coup for us, as we were previously reduced to chancing upon them. I don’t know why I didn’t think to try this before, but it should hopefully make our lives much easier. The other thing I discovered about using Google Earth is that it’s quite a good tool for spotting wild-camps. Brilliant!

We had a big list of things to find — throw rugs to keep us warm while we’re sitting around in Nettle, a laptop stand, keyboard and mouse for Katherine, who has been coveting my awesome workstation setup and the lack of back-pain that goes with it, a bunch of other stuff and second-hand bikes, which we still somehow haven’t managed to come by yet.

We spotted a shopping centre, which turned out to be quite small, but we did find a computer tech shop and nabbed a mouse, then headed onwards towards the medina, which we wanted to wander around for a while.

As we approached we were immediately set upon by someone who spotted us, the rich tourists; I steadfastly ignored him, having had well enough of being polite! Into the crowded cave-like corridors we went, moving at a crawl through the tight press of people — all Tunisians, no tourists that we could spot. A guy who was walking to his stall for the day, remarked to us on the busyness of the place. He worked in a perfumery, making oils and such. He told us that the proper ‘tourist’ medina was further onwards and offered to lead the way. We preferred to wander where we were, but he’d said it wasn’t far and it would’ve been nice to get our bearings a little. We followed a little way, farther than we’d anticipated, until we spotted a corridor lined with rug and blanket stalls and, spotting our opportunity to politely slip away, bid him farewell and headed down to see if we could find any throw-rugs.

No luck, but we continued wandering aimlessly, more-or-less un-harassed. It was a funny place, lots and lots of different goods available, but within each category (jeans, shoes, rugs, kitchen utensils, electronic goods, art supplies…) the goods were all the same, and choice was very limited. So, we didn’t do too well with our list of things to buy while we were still paying in Dinars.

We stopped at a café located off to the side of a covered corridor and had lunch of tasty grilled fish on a tomato sauce with chips on the side. The place was quite atmospheric, a dimly lit tunnel with Tunisians wandering by with their shopping, a bunch of men sitting outside another café nearby smoking sheeshas.

We found ourselves in the ‘touristy’ part of the medina, and entered a world of annoying pushy merchants, all with the same wares — copper-and-glass lanterns, painted pottery jars/urns, ornate hinged boxes, sheeshas (those water pipe things), bird cages, like the one Katherine bought in Medenine, and various leather goods.

The stores looked fascinating, and we would’ve stopped to investigate more, but for the amazingly stupid behaviour of the vendors — they would all stand, blocking the entrance to their shops, and as soon as they saw you looking at anything near their stall (actually, as soon as you were within earshot). they start with the badgering. Where are you from? Come look at my shop. You very beautiful. (to Katherine). One glance at a lamp or a birdcage and they would pounce and wouldn’t let you do anything else but start talking prices. We just wanted to look at stuff!

One vendor, who we naïvely thought may have been just being friendly, brought us tea and talked with us, then it was clear it was a ploy to guilt us into staying and buying something; he would first tell us to take our time looking around, give us a couple of seconds, then be back prodding and nudging, being a complete ass and touching Katherine’s hand. Katherine had originally wanted a closer look at a lamp, and by blocking the exit and keeping on us, we were hard-pressed to find an exit. He asked several times more than we would be willing to pay for a lamp that didn’t really suit us, and it was only by basically forcing our way past him out of the shop that we managed to escape. If that wasn’t enough, he actually scolded us as we walked by later!

Another vendor noticed we were looking at a bird cage, and told us it was five dinars, then once we were inside told us this one was more expensive, because it was better quality. The others were five dinars though.

After a couple of similar experiences, as well as more sleazy behaviour towards Katherine than anyone should ever have to put up with, we had had enough — it was either bail now, or fashion a shiv from whatever’s handy and just get stabby. Katherine actually wanted the bird cage we were looking at, but we were furious with the terrible behaviour of the merchant, and just walked out on him as he shouted decreasing prices after us.

We wonder if they have any idea their behaviour is so offensive as to scare off customers. We were very pleased we had visited the medina at Sfax, which was entirely devoid of such unacceptable behaviour!

We’d had enough of Tunis, and despite having managed almost nothing on our to do list, we headed back to Nettle through the rain, via the supermarket we’d identified earlier.

We’d identified a caravan park relatively close by, the other side of Hammam Lif, to spend the last few days, and headed off down the motorway. A stopover to get fuel while it was still so bafflingly cheap ended with a little concern after the attendant ripped the cover off Nettle’s fuel inlet in the process of filling up, then blithely said “ça va.” (it’s okay), and then asked for payment. Luckily it was just a clip-on thing that had come undone, and I clipped it back on easily while holding the fuel pipe from the other side. Phew!

We found our way to the caravan park, located on the far side of a very weird collection of half-finished buildings and puddle-covered dirt roads. We originally thought it was an under-construction tourist zone or something, but we later found it was a residential area. Tunisia is weird.

The caravan park appeared closed; I wandered around trying to find someone to talk to, but failed, so we just pulled up within the entrance-way, nicely out of the way, and closed up for the night.

I said something to the effect of “Now, what would be good is for there to be a knock at the door and there to be a caravan park attendant to open up for us“. Then, there was a knock at the door and there was a caravan park attendant welcoming us in. After experimentally trying “Now, what would be good is for there to be a suitcase of a few million dollars to appear“, we happily followed the dude in, plugged into the electricity hook-up, and settled in.

We stopped in blissful quiet on the verge a few metres off the side of the road, switched on the boiler so we could have hot showers, treated ourselves to the use of our gas-guzzling heater, and I pulled out the laptop for a little programming, resting my feet against the warm heater while the water heated up and Katherine had the first shower. Warm, filling porridge for breakfast, then, feeling refreshed, warm, clean and good to go, we hit the road again, heading for Dougga, site of some promising-sounding ruins.

Almost immediately, we were struck by the change in the landscape around us — the first leg of our drive took us though some pine-covered mountainous terrain that for some reason reminded us strongly of Ireland! Only, instead of bog as far as the eye can see, there was scrubby ground-cover on dry dirt and rock. Looks similar from a distance.

I pulled over for a moment to take a picture, and a village youngster came over to say hello and (of course) ask for a dinar.

The scenery became greener and greener, and soon we were driving through gentle rolling green hills, a blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds completing the scene — a real sight for sore eyes, especially given that it was one which contained no garbage. We were reminded of the French countryside, then English farmland, the greens a very pretty bright emerald shade.

We gaped at a Roman arch we passed, sitting casually by the side of the road.

We stopped just outside of Dougga for lunch, by the road surrounded by grassy plains, then headed to the ruins along a little back-street that led up through the town, past chickens and tractors. We crested a hill and were struck by the intense green of a large field in the sun — we could be in Ireland! Except for the Roman city atop a neighbouring hill, behind an olive orchard.

We pulled up in the car park, put on all our warm gear and headed out into the biting wind.

This ancient town is probably the most impressive ruins we’ve seen — the detail that remains is amazing, and for the most part it’s quite easy to imagine it how it was at its peak in 2-4 AD. We walked along paved roads — a little buckled now in places, but still remarkably intact — passed by very solid-looking high stone walls, wandered in awe around the semicircle of a huge theatre, crossed an immaculate square with a still-visible engraved circle naming the twelve winds, beside an immense temple. We admired stone blocks engraved with carefully lettered text, and thought the font looked quite familiar — hey, that looks like Times New Roman.

We laughed at the sociably arranged latrines in a bath house, mere holes in a semi-circular bench, placed close enough that the users would probably all but have their thighs touching!

We were surprised to be told by our guidebook that the ruins were inhabited until the early 1950’s, when the inhabitants were shuffled out to ‘Nouvelle Dougga’, the new town.

As we wandered the crumbling city of light grey stone, in some places we felt a little like we were walking around the city of Rohan from Lord of the Rings, streets built in tiers into the hillside. The way the city soared above the surrounding emerald plains probably contributed to the impression, too.

We were quite awed, despite being almost chilled to the bone in that nasty wind. We would’ve liked to wander a little longer, but time had run out on us, and the hypothermia probably wouldn’t have held off much longer anyway. We headed back to Nettle, put the heater on full blast, and hit the road, having decided to make the drive to Tunis rather than face another wild-camp.

The drive was, again, very enjoyable as we passed through some really very pretty scenery, enhanced further by that magic late afternoon glow. We spotted the poignant/macabre scene of a stork and her offspring nesting atop a power pylon with the corpse of a prior hatchling fluttering in the breeze, caught on a piece of nest.

Our first glimpse of Tunis as we topped a rise was startling — the sprawl of the city as far as the eye could see was something we weren’t used to, having travelled for the most part through little villages.

Our dusk drive through the capital was very silly — large intersections where, truly, anything goes, and traffic flow is dictated solely by the patience of the drivers involved (‘give way as long as you can be bothered doing so’); traffic lights that no one pays any heed to; impatient drivers edging into the oncoming traffic, pushing others off to the right of the road in the process; pedestrians so oblivious of traffic that I first had to rev the engine to alert the three girls that I was there and trundling along behind them, then had to repeat the process to avoid clocking another guy over the back of the head with my mirror, the footpath devoid of any foot traffic just beside him. It was all fairly relaxed though, and the various impressive feats of insanity we observed mere entertainment as we crawled along through the traffic.

We were a bit disappointed when we arrived at our destination — a car park that Birgit and Dieter had suggested to us — having pictured something like the basic-but-secure car park-cum-caravan park in Palermo, walled in with a gate. Instead, it was a wide open shopping centre car park, beside a park; not particularly well-lit, and the guy that met us as we drove in said we could only stay a night, instead of the flexibility we were expecting. Still, it was a place to stop, and we closed up for the night, hoping for no whiskey-seekers.

Along the way, and for our drive afterwards, we were amazed by our treatment as we drove through little towns — everywhere, people waved or gave us the thumbs up. In one town in particular, everyone was in on it, jumping around and waving as we drove by!

We found a park at the tourist centre, and were immediately set upon independently by two men who apparently worked in souvenir shops within the centre. The first wanted to show us some trinkets to buy; we sent him off. The second was after the same, but first asked us for — you guessed it — whiskey. As always, they persisted for way beyond the time that would be considered polite and acceptable, and we felt quite furious by the time I saw the second man off. We swallowed our irritation (Katherine: “I didn’t swallow my irritation. I let it rage, baby.“) and reminded ourselves that we’ll be back in Italy in just a few days.

We had a quick snack, toasted cheese and tomato sandwiches again — so good to have cheese again! — and walked through the tourist centre (doing our best to ignore one of the irritating vendors), to get tickets to visit the site.

Katherine remarked on the unfortunate fact that she felt like she wanted to race through the ruins as quickly as possible so we could get back to Nettle, our comfort zone (and keep Nettle safe from any store vendors that thought they might have a go at break-and-entry, as unlikely as that would be).

Italy definitely can’t come soon enough, for us! We puzzled over what would lead so many men to ask foreigners for whiskey — it’s happened to us about eight times, representing a good proportion of the places we’ve stopped. I was kinda hoping it’d become a bit of an in-joke and be funny, but it’s just irritating. I wondered whether it might be a cultural thing — an artefact of the still-present Berber culture’s hospitality that makes it appropriate here for strangers to ask for such things; but it’s alcohol — there’s nothing acceptable about that! Particularly so in Tunisian culture, where it’s forbidden (therein lying part of the answer, I suspect). I suppose every society has its problematic individuals. We just seem to be meeting all of them, one by one.

Anyway, talking about the issue made it more intellectual than emotional and irritating, and we soon forgot it in the splendour of the ancient Roman town.

We were amazed at the preserved details, particularly the intricate mosaics in the bathhouses, including one large room with a completely intact mosaic floor. The temples, for which Sufetula is most well-known, are very impressive, towering above the surrounding rubble.

We pretended to each other that we were shocked and offended at the affectionate antics of a young local couple who were flirting with each other around the temple — a shameful display of public affection! We, on the other hand, as usual, would keep an eye out for onlookers and steal a hug or kiss before someone noticed (shows of public affection being considered rude here). It’ll be nice to hold hands in public again in Italy! Always feels weird just walking side by side.

We returned to Nettle and pondered our next move — we’d heard tell of a hotel nearby that lets motorhomers stay in the car park for a whopping 18 dinars (about $16 AUD or something like €9 EUR, off the top of my head). We thought we’d have a look, and laughed when the guy at reception told us 25 dinars! For a car park! We scoffed and drove onwards, keeping an eye out for a wild-camp suitably away from any towns and whiskey-seekers.

We drove for a long way and didn’t find any places that looked particularly appealing. We ended up settling for pulling over by the edge of a smaller quiet side road. We had waved to a girl leading a donkey in the nearby village as we did a U-turn, and after we pulled over, a louage (minibus taxi-like thing) pulled up and she hopped out — Just to say hello! At least, we thought it was her — kinda difficult to tell, given that she was all wrapped up in a shawl earlier. She was very sweet — as Katherine remarked, outgoing enough to come out to say hi, but too shy to actually say anything when she got here! I attempted a little conversation in French, but her French was worse than mine (hooray! I’m better at French than someone!), and she ended up saying a shy good-bye and leaving again in the louage!

So we settled in, at a rather large slant which, strangely, always makes it hard for me to walk around in Nettle, and Katherine made dinner while I post-processed photos.

A less pleasant interchange happened next, when there was a tap at the door — What the crap? Even out here? — I opened the window and peered out. There was a 14 or 15 year old boy, very timid with presumably very little French, who was asking for…something. Katherine picked up “l’eau” (water), and I repeated it as a question — you want water? He nodded, then said something about medicine. Medicine? For what? What kind of medicine? (In French, where we could). Blank look. Katherine wondered if he had a headache or something and was after Panadol — I prompted in broken French, medicine for the head? Yes, he nodded, medicine for the head. Um.

About five or ten minutes of prompting later, with me carefully repeating details and asking for confirmation, doing hand gestures, going around in circles, and suffering many long uncomfortable silences, he managed to change his story and communicate a very confusing and contradictory tale about needing 10 dinars to go home. No, not in a taxi or a louage, in a car. His friends’ car. Why was his friend asking for 10 dinars? Why didn’t he have the money already? Oh, it was a louage? Your friend is the louage driver? Why not pay him when you arrive at home? It went on and on, with me getting more frustrated and almost shouting at the guy in my appalling French. I suggested getting the driver to come here so we could pay him, I suggested hitch-hiking; he wanted 10 dinars so he could go home. 10 dinars. To go home. Who knows what that thing at the start had been, about water/medicine…

About twenty minutes had gone by, and Katherine had dinner ready and going cold on the table. We had only a 20 dinar note. Our choices were to close the window and have an audience for the rest of the night (or have a break-in attempt like at La Goulette!), to just drive off to escape with dinner sliding around the table, or to just give him the 20 dinar note and hope that we were doing a good deed and not just getting conned. Another item for our “Rascals” expense category!

Oh well. I guess we saved 5 dinars by wild-camping instead of staying at the hotel. It’s funny how the money never matters — $17 means very little to us, really — but there’s something about the experience of being separated from money when we feel like we’re being had that’s very uncomfortable. Hopefully he was legit, just a little slow and bad at communicating. Katherine remarked on how similar his manner was to the strange guy we met outside of Douz — the same long silences, just standing there staring at me, the same timid manner.

Just a few more days till Italy and being left alone!

For a silly end to a silly day, just as we were falling off to sleep around 11:30, a car pulled up outside and there was yet another knock at the door (we’re going to have to install one of those deli ticket serving systems out there , I think). We swore, jumped out of bed, threw our clothes on, put the bed up, put some stray dishes onto the floor where they wouldn’t cause trouble if we had to leave quickly, then I grabbed the keys, put them in the ignition and gingerly opened the window. This time, it was better than we’d expected — it was the friendly National Guard.

They kindly told us they didn’t think our last-ditch-effort wildcamp was safe (then the other guy disagreed and said no, there was no danger!), checked our passports, and then suggested we stay in the town. I explained the difficulty we had finding somewhere else to stop, and our aversion to staying in towns (whiskey, whiskey, whiskey), and they laughed and said we should tell any whiskey-seekers that we have friends in the National Guard (or something to that effect); pas du whiskey!. They suggested they lead us back into the closest town and drop us off outside the police station to stay there for the night. We agreed, they apologetically bid us good night, and we drove on into town to be deposited at our worst wildcamp ever: Right beside the busy main road amidst a louage stop! Loud trucks, motorbikes, passing right by our ears, yet we managed to fall off to sleep fairly quickly and slept well.

As is our way lately, slightly embarrassingly, it wasn’t until about 12 that I found the manager guy and told him that nous devons aller au ville pour quelques heurs, which may or may not mean that we were off to town for a few hours (but not to freak out and think that we’d skipped out on the fee), and we drove out the gate.

We were used to doing grocery shopping in Tunisia, so we had resigned ourselves to stopping at a thousand little grocery stores, each with a very slightly different set of available goods, until we had the basics of what we needed. Or we couldn’t take it any more. I managed to look like a total dumb tourist, first when I was entirely unable to understand the French of one assistant, who kindly fell back to English; again when a shop-keeper gave me the price in thousands of milliemes which I dumbly misinterpreted as being ten times the actual amount, long enough to hand over a 20 DT note when a couple of coins would have sufficed. Those three decimal places are a killer.

After visiting a couple shops and still missing some staples, we drove on into the center of the rather metropolitan town, along a riskily narrow and cluttered road that seemed to be part of a market area, and found a park on a busy street nearby. I always feel sheepish hopping out of a giant motorhome in places like this, nodding amiably to the onlookers. Yep. We’re obscenely rich tourists. Sorry…

We wandered for about 20 minutes without having found a shop selling the things we were after, and then were thrilled to spot a big Carrefour sign. We cautiously approached, trying not to get our hopes up, then we saw that it really was a supermarket and it was open! We could hardly contain our glee!

A supermarket! A proper one! We eagerly walked inside, grinning — this was better than the camels! We found cheese — actual cheese! — and sliced bread, and canned tomatoes, and ice cream! By the time we were done, our shopping baskets were almost pulling our arms off. A helpful security guard pointed out that there were trolleys here, and we grinned and thanked him. Dumb tourists! Well it’s not our fault the place was full of more awesome, awesome stuff than we had anticipated.

We took our booty to the checkout, and proceeded to have a particularly awkward time when we were told they didn’t accept cards here (huh?), and I had to run to find an ATM while the line piled up behind us. The programmer in me was disgruntled that it wasn’t possible to pause a checkout session to let other people go past; Katherine was the one who had to stand and look sheepish while I found an ATM, though. Yeesh. Third dumb tourist moment of the day. Or is it fourth now?

With the familiar feeling of accomplishment, we drove back to the caravan park and settled in. Full cupboards again!

First things first: Coffee with grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches. Melt butter in pan, add slices of bread, fry until relatively brown, add tomato and cheese filling, top with another slice, flip, add more butter and swirl it around. The cheese was that kinda tasteless ‘emmental’ stuff that we’re not too keen on, but it didn’t matter — it was a freaking revelation! Even better with a smear of harissa. A nice taste of things to come in less than two weeks when we’re back in Italy!

Update: Oh man! I nearly forgot to mention: Garlic-flavoured cream cheese!!

Our new German friends Birgit and Deiter had poetically described the amazing view of the stars from out in the desert, and we were keen to see for ourselves. Actually going out into the desert, far enough to get away town lights, was a bit of an expensive exercise, though, so we decided we’d go for the ‘lite’ version, following Birgit and Deiter’s suggestion to stay overnight near the edge of the huge salt lake Chott el-Jérid, away from towns. This way, we also get to stay in our own bed! (I suspect we’re more than a little wimpy)

So, making sure the sky was a perfectly clear blue, we set off in the afternoon — actually a little later than we’d intended, but we don’t seem to be able to do anything in a timely fashion these days! We drove about 60 ks through very pleasant golden late-afternoon light, through towns both grotty and littered, and towns almost pretty, with dense thickets of palm trees.

The road straightened out, in anticipation of the run over the lake, and we took a side road we thought was likely the one Birgit and Deiter had pointed out to us on the map. Sure enough, it led us to a collection of sandy-coloured rocks protruding from the sand, and a hard patch off the road for us to park on for the night.

It was quiet and well off the main road — well, quiet until Arabic pop music started wafting over to us from a village nearby. Still, it was far enough from any big towns that the stars were great — a bit like standing in a real-life planetarium, I thought, then couldn’t decide whether I felt silly thinking it.

It was our first ‘voluntary’ wild-camp since that awful La Goulette incident, and it felt fine. It was kinda nice to have the whole place to ourselves. Still, I couldn’t help imagining scenarios as I waited for sleep; being woken early to a knock outside and escaping the clutching hands of mad whiskey-seeking locals!

No such drama, we awoke and had breakfast; while I was washing the dishes, a guy came up and indicated that he wanted a word. Katherine muttered something to the effect of “here we go again”, and I took my reluctant time to engage and open the window. Then we felt bad — he was a friendly local who worked at a café buried in the rocks nearby and merely wanted to make its presence known to us. We thanked him and bid him a good day, feeling sheepish.

So, we set off in good spirits, excited about seeing the salt lake.

The road started out surrounded by plains dotted with salt bush, then become fairly unbroken sand. Patches of white appeared on the sand, becoming more common until the road was surrounded by salt as far as the eye could see. We passed many other motorhomers; we all flashed our lights and waved to each other, a familiar custom. Many were pulled over by the road for a better look, and we followed suit. There were lots of ramshackle “cafés”/souvenir stalls by the road, each with an accompanying collection of odd bits and pieces assembled on the salt on the opposite side of the road: Coloured salt piles, makeshift camels made of bits of wood, old boats.

The lake itself was cool — a very alien landscape, enhanced by quite cool-looking clouds overhead, and an interestingly striated mountain range in the distance.

We drove a little further and pulled over again when we saw that the salt was even denser and whiter here — awesome. We scrambled down the edge of the road and crunched our way out into the sparkling white.

So, with shoes filled with a combination of Saharan sand and Chott el-Jérid salt, we pressed onwards, north towards Gafsa, a town with a conveniently located and promising-sounding caravan park. As always, we nodded, waved and smiled at everyone we passed, all of whom stared at us as we drove by, and most of whom smiled warmly and waved too.

We had a distressing experience when we were passing through one town close to Gafsa; I saw a puppy running across the road a fair way in front of us, running past a bag or something left on the road. As we got closer, driving cautiously, aware of foolish puppies, my stomach lurched when I realised the thing on the road wasn’t a bag, but an injured puppy, clearly only just hit. The pup’s mother was rushing around and barking angrily — we were impressed by her bravery when she took on Nettle, racing at her as we passed; there was a thump when she butted against the side. As we got closer, the injured puppy turned its head towards us and yelped — there was no blood, but clearly he/she had a broken leg.

We came to a stop and fretted about what to do. We couldn’t get out safely — the puppy’s mother was in full battle mode, and there was no way we would’ve been able to get close, even if we had known what to do. If we’d been in Australia I would’ve googled the nearest vet and called, but google doesn’t work like that here. I noticed some locals looking over and, desperately hoping they or someone else would have the resources to help the pup, we regretfully inched carefully past the distressed family and drove on, feeling terrible. We drove past another dog family, puppies running around just beside the road and shook our heads. We see so many dead dogs and cats beside the road here (in Sicily, too), and wondered if it was a pet control issue, or a driver education issue.

Another 20 minutes and we arrived at the caravan park, tacked onto an odd tourist park place, with a restaurant/café, an enclosure with chickens inside, and old cars placed artfully in various places.

We ventured out, and headed to the livestock area. Wow! It was another world. The air rang with the bleats and yells of sheep, goats, and the shriller trills of baby animals of various species — some insanely cute goat kids. The place was packed, so we edged through the crowd, squeezing past animals and people alike. Not a woman in sight, I might add, aside from Katherine and another tourist we saw.

We passed some youngsters pushing a goat in a wheelbarrow; a man wresting an errant goat, a wheelbarrow full of chickens (and a man picking one up by its wing, which we weren’t too happy with), and a very bewildered-looking newborn goat — what a place to be born!

I recorded the sounds of the animal market, but was disappointed to find later that something had gone wrong with the recorder application, and the recording was gone. Oh, well.

We wandered onto the streets of Douz, thronging with people and lined with stalls. Katherine found a belt, and we met up with Birgit and Dieter, and their friends Manfred and his wife, who’s name currently eludes me, in the market square and had some very good sweet tea with them.

We also met a local souvenir vendor who we’d met the other day (Katherine bought some sunglasses from him) — he was actually an English teacher, but couldn’t find work, so he was getting by running a stall here! He had told us the other day that business was slowing down: The financial crisis was causing the number of visitors to dwindle, so he was wondering what he’d do next.

We wandered on, through the market square (we had a chuckle at the child’s jumper pictured below, for sale in one of the stalls. Right.), and on through the streets in search of water and bread, then back home.

We had the option to do an overnight trip (or even a week-long trip), but in the end we decided a shorter venture would be enough for now — we wanted to be far enough out in the desert to get away from the lights of any town, and immerse ourselves in the untainted starlight, but we couldn’t get far enough away by plodding camel, and the four wheel drive jeep trips were very expensive. Instead, we opted to do a day trip, and later, wild-camp out amongst the stars on the edge of the Chott el-Jérid, the big salt lake, following Birgit and Dieter’s suggestion.

So, Brahim called up for us and booked a trip out, and a taxi picked us up twenty minutes later. A short ride through the palms and we were at the “gateway to the Sahara”, a big concrete grandstand structure with a large arched opening in the middle, with nothing but low sand dunes beyond.

Our companion for the next few hours rounded the corner with two camels in tow behind, and we greeted each other. He directed the camels to kneel down, and we scrambled up and held on very tightly as they lurched to their feet again.

Those guys were freaking huge! We felt miles above the ground as we set off, bouncing around as we tried to adjust to the camels’ odd gait. Sitting astride these huge creatures was quite a stretch for our inner thigh muscles, and I’m pretty sure my legs can now bend backwards at the hip.

We headed out away from the town and soon all we could see was intricately-rippled sand dunes as we ambled along. The afternoon was sunny, warm and perfectly still, and it was very tranquil (apart from when our camel-wrangler’s mobile phone rang!). The dunes got bigger as we headed further out, our camel-wrangler leading them over larger ups and downs which sometimes caused some excitement:

We dismounted after riding for about forty five minutes, and stretched our protesting legs. We left the camels waiting patiently (mostly) while we wandered around, marvelled at this incredible, strange landscape and played in the amazingly fine Saharan sand.

I couldn’t stop admiring and taking photos of the amazing ripples in the sand — the patterns were stunning, and everything was immaculate and untouched. I was thinking I’d love to see a time lapse of these dunes over a period of weeks or even months — the landscape must be constantly in flux, with the never-satisfied-landscape designer that is the Saharan winds in control.

Best sandpit ever.

The sand was so fine that behaved in very interesting ways. It retained an impression of my fingerprints when I pressed my hand into it, and made interesting liquid-like patterns when you created mini-landslides by running your hand across it on a slope.

We found the immensity of the landscape a bit baffling; independently, we’d both sat on the dunes and idly dug our hands into the sand as deep as we could, musing on the fact that it’s sand, all the way down, and all the way over the horizon. That’s a lot of sand.

We got a bit silly after a while.

Eventually, it was time to make the trip back, so we re-camelled and set off.

On the way back, my dude got a bit impatient, being on a short rope attached to the camel in front, and got a little skittish, which was exciting, in a white-knuckled way. He got a few whacks on the flank for that, which we didn’t really like — poor guy!

It was surprising how quickly the warmth of the day faded once the sun dipped low on the horizon — it became quite chilly.

A fairly leisurely amble back to the “gateway”, interspersed by a little clinging on as my camel attempted a couple of shenanigans, and we dismounted, thanked our friendly camel-handler and somehow accidentally overpaid him by 30 DT (it was supposed to be 60 DT for the three hours). Haah! Oh well, hopefully we made his day.

We retired, did our best to remove the fine sand from our shoes, clothing, ears, hair and nursed our tired muscles. Awesome experience!