Day 23 - Tunisia

Tunisia

This morning we woke up in Africa! Tunisia borders Libya so it was a tad bit interesting given the current status of affairs in Libya at the moment. People on the ship suggested only going out of port on one of the cruise sponsored trips or excursions. We had just planned to go to the beach here but were warned cabs were pretty expensive, so we decided to book an excursion to the beach through the cruise line. The bus took us from the ship to a resort on the beach in Tunisia and then we spent a few hours at the resort and had access to their beach and pool. When we got off the ship there were people dressed up playing music and there were camels sitting outside waiting for people to have their picture taken riding them! We made sure they would still be there when we got back from our beach trip and were assured the camels would be there all day, they were full time workers. I’m really glad we waited because it turns out there were camels and horses on the beach to ride! Driving through Tunisia you can see it is a MUCH different place than the US and where we’ve traveled in Europe. It’s definitely a third world/developing country with a lot of interesting living quarters and dwellings and also a lot of trash around. It is very hot and humid, you see people parked or standing in just about any patch of shade you can find. Shelby said it was very comparable to when he was in Qatar or Bahrain. The people are Arabs but it was also has a strong French influence as the French were in control there at one time, so the people all speak French and Arabic. The resort we arrived at was very nice and there didn’t appear to be many people there and the ones that were there didn’t appear to be locals. We’d been warned about the culture here and the haggling and bargaining you must do for anything you buy. So when we got down to the beach there were several camels and horses waiting and the people were ready to deal. At first they told me 10 Euro for Colin to ride the pony. I said 5 Euro and the guy said OK. I went to get my wallet and realized I only had a 100 Euro and a 50 Euro bill and 4 Euro in coins, so I gave him the 4 Euro when I went for the ride. He tried to tell me it was 10 Euro to ride and I said ok then and took my 4 Euro back and told him they had camels right next to our boat for 5 Euro so we’d just ride there. He let me walk away and then a few minutes later he was over at our beach chairs telling me to put Colin on the horse for 4 Euro. Yay! Then before Colin was even off the pony he was trying to strike a deal with me to ride the camel. He said 2 people for 10 Euros on the camel. I told him OK because Shelby thought he had a 10 in his wallet and since I got the pony ride for a steal I figured whatever. Well Shelby did not have a 10 Euro in his wallet, so all I had left was the 100 and the 50 and I didn’t want to show him those. I took a US $10 bill out of my wallet and gave that to him and told him $10 to ride the camel. He said $15 or 10 Euro to ride the camel. So I then pulled out my 50 Euro bill and told him IF he could give me back 40 Euro in change I would pay 10 Euro for the camel ride. He called all his buddies together and they all attempted to scrape together 40 Euro but couldn’t do it, so then he told me $10 was ok and he took my US dollars to ride the camel. Deal! LOL It was quite interesting. Fun to bargain and haggle once or twice on vacation, but I wouldn’t want to live in a society where I had to argue over prices every time I went to the market or something. After we got our camel and horse rides out of the way we played in the water for a while. The water was crystal clear and turquoise with powdery fine sand on the beach. Lots of seashells and crabs were on the shore and there were fish in the water. We swam and cooled off before heading up to the beach to build a sand castle sea turtle and Shelby went out to catch some fish in Colin’s net for him to watch swim in the pail. He came back with a couple crabs and Colin was thrilled. We enjoyed our time on the beach and then it was time to head back to the bus to ride back to port. Once back on the ship we ate lunch and then headed down to the pool for a while. Colin met up with some of his friends from the kids’ club and had fun swimming with them and his Daddy. After that it was dinner time and then Colin went off to the kids club for pirate night. Arrrgh!