Tunisia
Odyssey: Eden to Oasis
Bicycle Africa / Ibike Tours
Dispatch 6 - Matmata
The most interesting part
of the day was traditional local housing which is subterranean. Our hotel was as well.
This architectural style creates a some what surrealistic atmosphere as you bicycle
through the area. There are miles and miles or eroded, knobby hills, with no apparent
housing and people wondering around, clearly not far from home.
On some of the knobby
hills you’ll see a car parked, or a television antenna, or solar
panel, alone sticking out of the hard
sandstone earth. Look a little harder and you see cave opening into the hills and not far
away, above them large "sink-holes" in the earth.
The caves are actually
entrances into the housing complexes and the "sink holes" are the central court yards. Into
the side of the court yard a number of rooms are dug out for bedrooms, storage and small
animals. Large animals (i.e. camels and donkeys) spend the night in the court yards. The most
extravagant of these domiciles can have several courtyards and a multiple of that
additional rooms. Our hotel was one of these such warrens. It was in one
of the houses, now converted to a hotel, that part of Star Wars was filmed. The Hotel Sidi Driss,
around the corner, was used for extensively for the interior shot of
Lars
family homestead. After the filming the architecture was returned to
normal, but in 2002, the owners redecorated part of the hotel to look like
the Star Wars set --
presumably to attract Trekkies and other tourists.
Now a days big busses stop in front and a large numbers of tourist pass
through the hotel, stay on average less than five minutes and few stay so it
is difficult to identify an economic benefit.
Getting there wasn’t half bad either – or
was only half bad. Well it started with an awful rocky road. [Ed. note:
the road has since been paved.] After twenty or so kilometers
the road was paved but there was a monstrous hill to climb. Actually, this was more than
sufficiently rewarding. The views were great winding in and out of the hills and along the
ridge tops, and looking out over the flat lands from where we had come. The pavement
probably lasted for less than ten kilometer before we were back on gravel.
[Ed. note: the road has since been paved.] But this was a
much better surface than the early road had been and it was much flatter than the hills of
the previous section. The last ten kilometers were again paved. It is mountainous and
beautiful country.
Despite
the fact that I haven't figured out how to photograph it, we stop for snacks in
the somewhat picturesque and
crumbling mountain
mountainside town of Toujane. From the number of
houses in disrepair it doesn’t seem like the economy has been healthy for a while. We
learned that things are particularly bad this year.
Winter is the normal rainy season, but
it has only rained twice so far this year. [Ed. note: Other years
have had better rains and with the
paving of the road, at least the economy of the main street, based on
the number of curio shops, is much improved. There are still many
castle-like houses that are abandoned and need of major repair.]
While the majority of the kids were sweet, we got our first taste of "tourism culture" from a few kids, today. Children start to ask for money, sweets, pens and other things, and a few were bold enough to be verbally harassing, chase the bikes and even sent a couple of rocks skidding our direction. Opposite the proverb of "one bad apple can spoil the barrel" we have to remind our self about all the kids who greet us and encourage us on.
While, in the name of progress, they keep paving
my favorite dirt tracks around the country, there are still a
left.
The one from Zammour to Matmata is a lot of people favorite ride of the
tour. Comments include: "the cacophony of birds," "flash backs to New
Mexico," "riot of wildflowers; many varieties of yellow, purple and a
red-orange," "wonderful," "gorgeous," and "overall it is the most
consistently spectacular ride we've had so far."
In this region it is advisable to start early
because there is not a lot of shade. Even
the almost omnipresent olive
tree is rare on this route. Don't pass up the opportunity to
rest when it presents itself.
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