Tag Archives: desert

TUNISIA – WATER, DESERT AND NOMADIC VASTNESS

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It doesn’t matter if the road is long, as long as there is a well at the end. (Tuareg proverb)


“A Street in Gadames” by Giorgio Oprandi, 1929.

Water is our cool elixir, which unfortunately is not available everywhere in the world. But as climate change progresses, desert and semi-arid areas around the world will expand even further, while countries like Spain or Italy are already experiencing water shortages in summer.

Here the water still gushes abundantly in the mountain oasis of Tamerza

From the main road between Tabarka and Bizerte we had to drive 15 km over deserted sandy roads to reach Cape Negro, a forgotten and abandoned place on the Mediterranean coast with typical vegetation, a rather cool wind from the sea and also a long sandy beach without other people, there in the area you can also still find the typical cork oak forests.

Cork oak in a forest near Tabarka not far from the Algerian border

“Hotel Les Mimosas” in Tabarka

Doesn’t this hotel really look very French? The beautiful place is situated on a small hill and offers a beautiful view of Tabarka and the sea.

Sidi-el-Barrak water reservoir near Nefza

This reservoir in the very green north of Tunisia is also a completely untouristy place, but at this moment in the late afternoon, the mood and the interplay of light, clouds and water revealed something different.

The Atlas massif divides Tunisia, and the great Sahara begins at its southern edge.

Consider that 2,000 years ago, Tunisia was still the granary of the Roman Empire. Since then, the warm period after the last ice age and normal climate change have transformed formerly very fertile areas into vast wastelands and endless desert zones. And the Sahara has not stopped its unchecked expansion to this day.

Cracked desert between Tozeur and Tamerza, Sahara

This photo remains one of my favourite travel memories from Tunisia and shows a single hardy bush in an area of cracked and parched ground, probably due to very rare and heavy rains some time ago.

But where are the legendary dromedaries? Not a single one here.

The photo was taken on the main road coming from the north and Tunis, which is now really deep in the south somewhere between Metlaoui and Tozeur.

The cave dwellings of Matmata, also known as the home of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars.

Halfway between Tozeur and the Djerba Peninsula lies the cave village of Matmata, where people have lived for millennia and which was made wellknown by the famous cult film series Star Wars. The landscape is quite barren with only a few dwellings on the surface, but the magic of Matmata goes deeper and reveals itself to guests when they descend into the unique underground cave dwellings, which offered their inhabitants good protection from extreme cold at night and the burning sun during the day.

Arab Scene in Tunisia, Ernesto Quarti Marchio, 1933

Small paradise and tiny water well near the Douz oasis.

The Sahara desert used to be a vast sea where nomads made their endless sailing trips on dromedaries (not camels), some still do. Nevertheless, I really appreciate the desert (as well as high mountains) as a very purist place with a clear, unlimited view to the distant horizon that can clear your mind and broaden your horizons, a really exciting feeling besides all the known dangers and risks.

Nomadic monument at a road junction in Douz.

The oasis of Douz is a real gateway to the Sahara and today has about 30,000 inhabitants. The desert dunes near Douz are famous because they consist of an incredibly soft and almost white sand. The area is traditionally inhabited by the semi-nomadic Mrazig tribe, an Arab Bedouin tribe that left the Arabian Peninsula in the 8th century and settled in Tunisia in the 13th century. Today, many make their living from date harvesting, and probably the best dates in Tunisia come from Douz, called Deglet en Nour. The “gold of the oasis” is therefore more than just any fruit for the inhabitants of Douz.

Death zone of the huge salt lake Chott-el-Jerid after sunset.

Today, the huge salt lake Chott-el-Jerid can be crossed safely on a solid dam with a road that also connects the oasis areas of Nefzaoua and Tozeur. In the past, such a journey was a dangerous adventure.

Not suitable for drinking – only the salty water of Chott-El-Jerid

Ruins of the ancient city and mountain oasis of Tamerza

Now this trip here has really become more of a collage of texts, impressions and diverse pictures collected from various places in the vast and beautiful Tunisia.

Breakfast with fresh flower blossoms in the oasis of Tozeur

International Festival of Sahara at Douz 2019

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CAIRO – BEACON OF THE ORIENT

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Al-Azhar University, Cairo – postcard of late 19th century

 

“Places whose names are all forgotten once dominated. For centuries before the early modern era, the intellectual centres of excellence, the Oxfords and Cambridges, the Harvards and Yales, were not located in Europe or the west, but in Baghdad and Balkh, Bukhara and Samarkand.”

from: The Silk Roads, by Peter Frankopan

 

Calligraphy with verses from the Koran

Cairo derives from the Arabic word El Qahira meaning just superb and glorious city.  Thousands of mosques and the famous Mohammedan University Al-Azhar are to be found on its municipal territory showing that this is one of the most important spiritual centres of Islam since long time. During my visit of the town in 1985 I had the opportunity to visit some of them, a fascinating and mysterious Oriental world with a varied architecture everywhere in the big town.

Visiting the bazaar in the old medina

Mosque of Muhammad Ali, courtyard with old well house

In this regard I have to admit one big mistake as it was really hot in Cairo I did wear short trousers. Not thinking about religious regulations (which are the same in Christian monasteries) one day I wanted to visit a mosque in Cairo, there was a guard at the entrance who stopped me abruptly while pointing on my naked legs. I must have made an impression of real pity because the guard took from a corner a not very clean blanket with which I had to cover my naked legs in order to enter the mosque. I felt really ashamed but the rather pragmatic approach of the guard saved the situation with a rather unusual solution.

Massive pyramidic construction and entrance

The famous Cheops Pyramide on Giza plateau

The day I went to Giza pyramidic complex was cloudy and without any sun. Only few visitors were present on site, good for making photos of the wellknown Sphinx, the stunning  pyramides and the surrounding desert. These are really more constructions for giants of any kind, so the Pharaonic ruling dynasties have left really a creation of eternity. Modern buildings of today would not survive several thousands years like these stony grave-yards.

The ancient Sphinx with pyramide in the background

Besides Cairo is also a very modern town with a terrible traffic I have never seen again. In 1985 there was just one underground line with a few stations, so the many millions of residents were forced to move through their metropolitan town by all means: cars, shared taxis, busses, donkey carts, motorbikes, even camels made their way through this crazy traffic. When I visited Cairo in 1985 around 6 million people lived there what I think is more than enough, but today population has grown to incredible 16 million residents, a real urban moloch.

View from Cairo Tower at a smoggy and dusty day

Street scenery with camels in the very centre

As a resident or visitor of Cairo you have to bear also a rather humid and hot climate while the wind unloads everywhere the sand of the surrounding deserts. Therefore, the view on Cairo from a high tower (see photo above) is not really clear and more smoggy. In the centre of the city I visited of course the big old endless bazaar and the renowned Egyptian Museum being now the home of the Pharaonic mummies and many other phantastic objects and relicts of the old times.

View on old Cairo with its thousands of mosques and minarets

In Cairo my long trip of 1985 through all Egypt from the East to the West, from the North to the South and again back started and ended. And here my fascination for the Oriental world has begun when passing the vast deserts of all kind, the horizon always far away, and then a principal feeling of freedom may stir up suddenly an open mind in wild amazement.