Sa-HA-ra!!! (Douz to Ksar Ghilane, Tunisia)

[Author's Note: I arrived in Tunis on September 10^th, 2010 and left two months later. The Arab Spring began in Tunisia on December 18^th, 2010, a day after the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi. I missed the festivities by about a month or so. Some would say I dodged a bullet but I cannot help feeling like I missed the boat. How often do you have the chance to watch history unfold from the front row? It is interesting for me to go back and read about my experiences at the time. Yes, I could almost taste repression in the air but if you told me the powder keg was about to ignite I would have been incredulous in the extreme. Yet, there it was boiling just beneath the surface. Keep this in mind when reading my Tunisia posts. It makes for a fascinating subtext.]

Oct 4^th, 2010 - I teamed up with a fellow American (Phil) to conquer the Sahara. We were both excited by the prospect of experiencing the largest hot desert (there's a bigger one in Antarctica) on earth and frolicking among its dunes. From what we both read it was an experience like no other. It turned out to be quite an 'experience' just not the one we had anticipated and hoped for. At least we had each other. 

An all night bus from Tunis led us to Douz, a small town on the edge of the Sahara. Our plan was to rent a 4WD and blaze off into the desert with nothing but 80 gallons of water (for when we got lost) and our wits (maybe a bit of cous cous for nibbling). The oasis of Ksar Ghilane is the southern-most tourist outpost but we were willing to head all the way to Tunisia's southern tip if need be. Yeah, our balls are that big (inverse relationship to the size of our brains).

Mr. Berber Man's Horsey (Ksar Ghilane, Tunisia)

From internet

[Author's Note: I arrived in Tunis on September 10^th, 2010 and left two months later. The Arab Spring began in Tunisia on December 18^th, 2010, a day after the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi. I missed the festivities by about a month or so. Some would say I dodged a bullet but I cannot help feeling like I missed the boat. How often do you have the chance to watch history unfold from the front row? It is interesting for me to go back and read about my experiences at the time. Yes, I could almost taste repression in the air but if you told me the powder keg was about to ignite I would have been incredulous in the extreme. Yet, there it was boiling just beneath the surface. Keep this in mind when reading my Tunisia posts. It makes for a fascinating subtext.]

Oct 6^th, 2010 - “Ksar Ghilane is where you'll understand the power of the Sahara's lure”..... and appreciate the effect of mass tourism on what should be a remarkable place. The first part is directly out of the Lonely Planet while the rest is my cynical addition. We arrived at our camp/hotel in the oasis to find ourselves thoroughly underwhelmed. Although the oasis is interesting it is regrettably filled with some rather shoddy accommodation (our hotel was no exception). 

Not only were our sleeping arrangements not particularly inviting they were unnecessarily modern (flushing toilets, hot showers, electricity, etc.). It may sound strange to complain about such things but the whole scene reeks of excess when you consider you are in the middle of a desert. Phil and I were hoping for a cozy Bedouin-style tent on the edge of a dune, not a half-ass tent city (notwithstanding the restaurant, bathroom facilities, and souvenir shops) swarming with middle-aged French tourists. We wanted to shit in the sand, damn it!  After reading this paragraph a couple of times I realize one could almost assume Phil and I were on some sort homosexual desert escapade. There is nothing wrong with homosexuals, Phil (he's quite lovely), or escapades but Tunisia is probably not the place to have a Big Gay Holiday just in case I gave that impression.

Love & Al Qaeda (Ben Amira, Mauritania)

I'm not from here

Dec 1^st, 2010 - Listening to the desert wind sounds eerily similar to the inside of a seashell…….The next morning we made our way to the small village of Tmeimchitt for our first gendarmerie (civilian police) check-in of the day. Whenever entering and leaving a city or village it is necessary to provide passport information to the security forces so they know how many tourists/foreigners are in a given area. Supposedly, it is for our own safety. And what are they protecting us from? Hmmm.

According to Ahmed the commander of this particular outpost was a bit ornery which explains the two hour delay for no good reason. He was apparently upset about us not camping next to their office the previous night as opposed to outside the village where they could not keep a protective eye upon us.

Finally, we were released and began our drive toward the monolith of Ben Amira and the small village of the same name. Ben Amira the monolith is reputed to be the largest of its kind in Africa and second (in size) only to Uluru (Ayer's Rock) in Australia. There are a bunch of similar outcrops dotting the horizon as you approach but Mr. Amira is by far the most significant. The landscape (monoliths, desert, dunes, etc.) combined with the ramshackle village is the stuff of surrealistic dreams, the kind that haunt you long after you wake. Hard to describe but breathtakingly beautiful.

Terjit-Chinguetti-Tanochert (Adrar Region, Mauritania)

Dec 12^th, 2010 - (Nov 12^th) Vexation. Frustration. Cerebral constipation. Anti-cooperation. This became the nature of our relationship with Ahmed. He was confusing the living bejesus out of us. We floated the idea of having our Dutch friend (Yoris) join us for at least part of our journey. He had hopped on the ore train from Nouadhibou and ended up hitchhiking his way to Terjit afterward. We had space in our Toyota Heliux, Ahmed would incur no extra cost that we could foresee, and Yoris' fluency in French would assist Ahmed as much as it would us. No problem, right? Wrong. 

Ahmed resisted. First he said something about insurance, claiming if something happened to Yoris he would be liable. Alllllriiiiight. Liable to who? Was he not already liable for us? What if Yoris had been with us from the start? What is the difference? I was mustering all my powers of empathy to see his point of view. He was not helping.

He mentioned phoning his sister in Nouakchott and asking her to speak with somebody for some reason to accomplish something (She was chummy with someone important). Then he mentioned a tax that had to be paid. As I tried to clarify and understand his position it slowly eroded until he finally told me it would be no problem. Huh? Tax you say? We were willing to pay it but he then claimed it was no problem. In the course of ten minutes he went from 'No F'in Way' to 'Ain't no thaaang but a chicken waaang'. Yes, I was bewildered. What else is new? It was impossible to accommodate him because it was impossible to determine what the hell he wanted.