Thursday, November 26, 1998.  Tunisian Army Checkpoint on the road from Le Kef to Kasserine:

"Papers."
"Yes, of course.  And might I add that that's a lovely automatic weapon you have there.  It wouldn't, by chance, be loaded?"
"Papers!"
"Yes, right here."  I handed the passports to the soldier and he retreated back to the jeep.  After about five minutes he returned.

"American?"
"Oui."  It was the one of the few French words I knew.  The soldier didn't speak English, but like all Tunisians, spoke French.

The soldier pointed to the road straight ahead and said "Algeria, NO!"  He didn't need to repeat it twice -- Algeria is in the middle of a brutal civil war that has seen thousands of civilians massacred.  It was 20 miles away.

The soldier then pointed to the left.  "Kasserine," he said, "Oui."  And then with a warm smile characteristic of  all Tunisians we met, he said "Bon Voyage."

And so it was with our two weeks in Tunisia; we were constantly surprised by the warmth of the people.  With the exception of the very aggressive carpet touts in Kairouan, the people were warm, friendly, and eager to help us. 

The trip had a certain surreal feel to it, starting with the Air France flight from Paris to Tunis.  Just as the wheels left the ground and the plane pointed to the sky the theme from Star Wars began blaring from loudspeakers.  Were we on that much of an adventure?

Actually, the Star Wars theme was appropriate, as much of it was filmed in Tunisia.   The in-ground Troglodyte houses in Matmata were the inspiration for the home of Luke Skywalker's Aunt and Uncle.  There

New This Week:
Take a tour of Tunisia in my Tunisia Photo Gallery.

is a picture of the one used in the movie in the Photo Gallery.

We arrived in Tunis, the capital city, on Tuesday, November 24, 1998 and spent the next 10 days exploring the people and places that make up North Africa's most progressive and only democratic country.

We stumbled around the Roman ruins at Dougga and Speitla and the huge Roman coliseum at El Jem, marveling at the ability of the Romans to build.  What a marvelous place those cities must have been -- as long as you weren't a slave doing the building.

We rode camels out into the Sahara and spent the night sleeping on the dunes.   We ate a breakfast of bread, cooked in the sand under the campfire, and green tea.  

We climbed around Berber villages, both inhabited and abandoned.  We waded among the sheep and donkeys.  We watched where we walked.

We walked around the Medinas, the old Islamic quarter of a city, and tried to avoid the carpet touts.  We drank tea in cafes among men who sat and smoked tremendous water pipes.

We wandered around Tunis, a vibrant city of one and one-half million residents.   We even went in a mall.

We stayed in seaside fishing towns, the locals mending nets and painting their boats while we played tourist.

But most of all we learned.  We learned that no matter where you go, children smile and play, adults try to make a living, and as always, we learned that there is so much more to see.