Day 6: I bless the rains down in Africa - well, except there was no rain

Our welcome to Tunisia!

Originially we were supposed to go from Sorrento to Taormina, Sicily, then Malta, then Tunisia. But the day we were scheduled to arrive in Tunisia is a sacred holiday for the Muslims. They sacrifice lambs (I think), and the cruise line thought that might be a bit much if we happened to see it, so they changed things around. So our next stop was in Tunisia, in Northern Africa. So yes, I can now say I've been to Africa.

They warned us so many times to be careful of pickpockets and not to go into rug shops (because they'd keep you there for hours), so I was a bit worried about going there. But we had another excursion, so I knew we'd at least be with a bunch of other people from the cruise.

We made it to the main theater where we all met for our excursions. They called our number and we went to the bus, where we were met by our tour guide. We drove through Tunis, the capital of Tunisia. It was very interesting. A lot of white buildings. I kept thinking I'd see a lot of sand and tents, and it wasn't like that at all. Tunisia is probably the closest ally to the US in the Muslim world.


We found out later we could have taken pictures on the camels. Oh well.


After going through town, we stopped at the Bardo Museum, which has the finest collection of mosaics in the world. Although most of the mosaics here are on the walls, they were originally on the floors of the wealthiest citizens of Tunisia. There are a ton of really great looking mosaics, although they're all pretty much this same color.



Tunis is close to Carthage, one of the first superpowers in the world. That's just a random fact. But it explains some of the historical significance of the area. They had a rivalry with Rome and the original city of Carthage was destroyed by the Romans. The current city of Carthage is a suburb of Tunis.

As we left the Bardo Museum, there were several peddlers trying to sell us cheap jewelry and other trinkets. It's very popular there.



We next went to the Medina, the ancient shopping center of Tunis. It's kind of a farmer's market, but with goods rather than produce. Tons of little shops, and haggling's the name of the game. Mom checked out some shoes and the guy took her to the back of the store and kept going down in price trying to get her to buy the shoes. Just one problem - the shoes didn't fit. So no matter how low they were trying to get, Mom wasn't going to get them. They went all the way down to $5 (US) and were kind of blocking her way out, so I went along and helped her get back out. They aren't dangerous, just very aggressive sellers. We went around the many hallways and kept having people haggle with us trying to get us to buy things. We did buy a couple of souvenirs.



Then we met up with our tour guide again and made the trip back to the ship. At the port, there were some other shops, and we stayed the most in one little one where the people were very nice. They kept telling us there was no pressure and to keep looking around for what we'd like. My mom came back from their outside display with an object. She told me it was an olive oil holder. It looked like an ashtray to me, but I went ahead and bought one too. As we were purchasing it, they said it was an ashtray. It was made out of olive wood, which is what the lady tried to tell her. Haha, so we now cherish our 'olive oil holders'

So all in all, Tunisia was a very interesting country. I'm glad I visited. I can't say it was my favorite stop, but certainly glad I was able to go.