Tunisia Trip - Post 2
We made it to Tunis with only a few very minor adventures. Flights across the Atlantic seem to all be about the same, long, boring, minor cat naps and ending up groggy and buzzy. The change of planes in Paris (CDG) was easy and stress free since we arrived early and the signage was very clear to change terminals and no passport control since we were just in transit. From the gate to the plane was via bus that seemed to drive half way to Tunis before finding our plane parked way out near the edge of the airport. It was a lovely approach to Africa along the coast and over estuaries, small villages and large agricultural fields.
The Tunis airport is fairly small but de-planing was through a regular jet-way. Here I lost Judy. She was sitting behind me a few rows and after I got to the end of the jet-way I waited for her. She had not shown up after all passengers had gotten off and a few of the crew. Had she jumped off the plane over the sea? I finally walked on to passport control where I hoped to find an official to ask about my missing friend. The place was crowed with longish lines. As I was walking along looking for the shortest line up walks Judy asking me where I had been. Uh??? Where had you been. It turns out there was a back door of the plane, which she had taken and then a bus to passport-control and was there before me. I had tried to text her and she me but I guess our phones had not yet gotten hooked up to the local cell system well enough…. Or something.
With relief that we were not yet lost we headed out to meet the driver I had arranged for through the hotel. Before even leaving the building a fellow walked up and asked if we were with OAT. Yes, we were. He spent some time looking on his phone for our names and then told us to wait a few minutes. Uhmmm? Was this the hotel driver? I had been told by OAT that since we were arriving a day early we would need to arrange our hotel and transfer ourselves. This person was having trouble with his phone, his English was hard to understand in the noisy airport and we were blotto-tired. We just followed him out and to a car (taxi?) that did take us to near the hotel. The driver explained in Arabic and/or French that it was just down that way and around the corner to the right (“a droite” was all I understood). We got out, pulled our carry-ons across a busy street and down a couple of blocks and found the hotel. The receptionist seemed a little confused as to how we had gotten there. Indeed, the hotel had sent a driver but we had never shown up. Oops, there were two drivers to pick us up and the OAT one got to us first. I was very apologetic trying to explain what had happened. By my tired looks and garbled speech she was quite understanding and gracious.
After a mediocre dinner in the hotel restaurant we were in bed by 9pm and asleep within seconds. I was awakened at 5am by the call to prayers broadcast from a nearby mosque. I prayed briefly to go back to sleep but only snoozed after that. Breakfast was a typical hotel buffet with the standard watery scrambled eggs (probably piped in from some world-wide scrambled eggs supplier). It was time to get out in the sun to help recover from jet lag. A nearby park seemed a good place to go. A zoo was part of the park but rather than go in to see typical exotic zoo animals (lions, elephants, camels, etc….. oh, this is Africa so just run-of-the-mill, local animals) we walked all around the outside peering through a fence once to see some gorgeous peacocks.
Our hotel room is quite nice and had already been made up with some extra flourish after we got back from ~1 1/2 hour walk. The job now was to stay awake in sunlight to switch time zones. Sitting in a sidewalk cafe almost in the warm sun and having lunch at an outdoor table later got us to mid-afternoon when the drooping eyes convinced us that a short nap would be wise… no more than 30 minutes.
Glad you made there safely. Thanks for keeping us posted.
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