The expedition diaries Tunisia (15-28 April 2003)                                        If you want to have photo or video materials about Tunisia - write us a letter.

Douz, white gates to the desert On the way to Douz we got into a little sandy tempest. It's a little threat when in a car, except almost zero visibility. One can't understand where to drive. If you go out of the car making an effort to shoot a video film, you experience by yourself its serious rigidity. Tons of sand are dashing at top speed beating to pain skin uncovered by clothes. Our girls found bruises on their skin later. Besides, the sun sticks ears, nose, and eyes to make you deaf and blind. You lose your way, failing to realize where you are. A point to add: we didn't cope with the video shooting, as the air filled with flying sand was out of focus. All around us it was getting dark as if at night, and we were compelled to have been picking out this sand for so long from the most unexpected places. DOUZ is considered to be a typical settlement of the desert surrounded from all the sides by real sandy dunes. The aboriginal people keep traditions and habits of their ancestors till now. On paying a visit to the local market, you will find a mixture of products from camel pelt, kitchenware, Berber adornments and many other things. To tell the truth, all these goods are rough a bit to a refined European liking. So you'd better look, than buy something. By the way, a kind of greyhound is grown here, called "sluggi". At first sight these lean dogs involve pity for their improbable leanness. By the way, they are the frequent winners of races for being capable to gain speed. Here big white gates to the desert may be found in Douz. Only boundless sand behind them. Mountains of yellowish, almost white sand. Sea of moving sand. A huge sandbox for adults. To move around the sand dunes you need a vehicle, for sure. The earned the title of "ships of the desert" are the best medium of transport. That's why there are a lot of camels here. Almost as many as the number of tourists that came to go for a pull. You can't have an easy access to a camel. You are required to get ready for it. First of all, you are given a striped chlamys and long scarf or piece of material to tie around the head and knotted on top to form a turban. And only after that you "are allowed" to ride a dromedary - one-humped camel. Of course, you can't do without certain skills. A camel is a "collapsible" animal; sometimes it stands up and sits down in the most inconvenient moments and without any sign of warning. So you get a strong hold of the saddle-bow with both hands, throw your leg over its back quickly and "attach" to the camel. If you do not want a driver to help you with the camel, certainly, you are supposed to establish diplomatic relations with your ship of the desert. Talk to him in a tender way, stroke its neck; in fine, make use of any means. The angry camel is an unpleasant animal. It may well frighten you tugging the head in a dissatisfied manner, snorting unmelodiously, clicking the tongue illustrating yellow teeth within a centimeter of your bared leg. Coming to an agreement with the dromedary you are about to set off. Don't forget that camels are rather lazy as well as their drivers. To entice them in great dunes, plenty of cunning and persistence is implied, but it's worth doing that. African hills (coming down a dune slope on a tilted camel) are equal to American ones. Anyway, they are not less entertaining. The ship of the desert gait suggests the rolling motion of a boat, as it is so monotonous and lulling. We think that one might doze on the way if had suitable skills. We overcame some dunes, trying in vain to protect faces from ubiquitous sand. Shaitan took us for a drive across the Sahara during the period of winds. Though it wasn't a real sandy storm, but the sand sticked all possible places. So we couldn't take a liking to enjoy the stroll. The camel driver, trudging doomly up and about next to us, claims an additional "bakshish" for every new off-scheduled dune. Having fixed the price, we give 5 dinars for three big dunes and heaps of small ones. Saying goodbye to the camels, we take off the Bedouin camouflage and leave Douz hardly dragging ourselves along. When we are going to leave, a local turns up as quick as lightning with the whole bag of desert roses and says in fluent Russian: "Three roses - two dinars". Astonished at his linguistic gift, we buy two dozens of these roses for our team at 10 dinars, quite a modest sum. Then the pleased seller offers us as much flowers as we bought. A swift thought squeezes in our mind: does the Sahara have an unknown crop of sandy roses? Did we pay through the nose for the flowers? Maybe, he was just fond of us. Next: >>>  The Berbers capital Matmata, troglodytes

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