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- Nov 20, 2005
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- 12/04 ST 1300s
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- 000420
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Michael, keep the reports coming! 
Be safe and enjoy the
Be safe and enjoy the
Escaping from Italy into Africa…
- Thread starter CYYJ
- Start date
He did not arrive by air, and has already left his port of entry... well ahead of the entry ban. Wonder whether any of that matters? Guess he will tell us, in due course.
I think he won't be affected by it,he's in the country already, of course geting out of there, that's another story, I was in Tunisia once, lovely resort and a 5 star hotel, but when you when out to see the country it really was a shock to see the poverty levels, that must be 20 years ago since I was there, lovely people very friendly and helpful.
OP
OP
CYYJ
Michael
Hi Ray:
Actually, I was not aware of that at all - thank you very much for bringing it to my attention.
The only definitive news I can find about the Prime Minister's announcement is on Reuters News - it seems the government has closed all the maritime borders, which means no ferries, which means I'm now trapped in Tunisia. Because of customs regulations, I can't leave the country without taking the motorcycle with me - tourist vehicles get stamped into one's passport upon entry, and unless you take the vehicle with you on the way out, you don't get out. Going east into Libya is out of the question due to the war there, going east into Algeria might be possible, but a real PITA - Algeria is not at all tourist-oriented, I'd need a visa, and I don't know how long the ferries from Algeria to Europe will operate. Apparently Morocco has also shut down ferries to Europe - but there is no way I could get from Algeria into Morocco, that border is sealed up tighter than the 38th parallel in Korea, and has been for many years.
But... every cloud has a silver lining. In my case, I'm on Djerba island right now, having ridden clear across the country from west to east today. Hotels here are almost empty and they are struggling to get clients. I checked into the Radisson Blu hotel in Djerba this afternoon, and asked them if they might be willing to give me a nicer room if I stayed for 3 or 4 days. I am now ensconced in in a 50 square meter (550 square foot) suite that would normally cost about USD 400 a night - I'm paying $65 a night, with an offer of a further 15% discount (applied retroactively) if I stay longer than a week.
I'm retired, and don't have to be anywhere on any kind of deadline, and there are a lot worse places than Djerba to be stuck in.
Below are some pictures of my $65 a night hotel
I figure I'll break even if I get quarantined here - if I was in Europe, I'd be spending $65 a day on fuel, never mind HOTAC.The Entranceway
The Lobby (the two people are employees - I was the only guest around)
The other side of the Lobby (I think they laid off the piano player)
The Smoking Room (The hotel provides the hookah, you have to provide your own hashish - not that I'm into that, I'm teetotal)
The Entrance to one of the Restaurants (the less expensive one - $20 for a full dinner buffet)
It was dark when I checked in - so I can't provide any photos of the grounds or the beach. Maybe tomorrow.
Michael
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What does your wife think of your possible "imprisonment" within the borders of Tunisia?? 
- or -
- or -
OP
OP
CYYJ
Michael
Just talked to her on the phone, she's happy I'm not stuck in some hovel somewhere.
My wife and several of her friends were planning to go to Italy on March 26th - they had been planning the trip for over a year, it got cancelled - so she comprehends the nature of travel uncertainty these days.
Michael
My wife and several of her friends were planning to go to Italy on March 26th - they had been planning the trip for over a year, it got cancelled - so she comprehends the nature of travel uncertainty these days.
Michael
Radisson Blu, always a good choice Michael.
Glad you're in a good spot.
Upt'North.
Glad you're in a good spot.
Upt'North.
Time for another escape...
Like the line at Walmart.....
the Ferret
Daily rider since May 1965
NICE! If it were me I'd be stuck in the Tunisia version of Comfort Inn lol
OP
OP
CYYJ
Michael
Well, I think it's time for me to change the title of this thread to Escaping from Tunisia to anywhere that will let me in.
Since Friday of last week, I have been in government-imposed self-quarantine at the Radisson Blu hotel in Djerba, Tunisia. Last Friday was when the government announced that anyone who had recently arrived in Tunisia (from anywhere) had to quarantine themselves for 14 days. So far, I've been pretty fortunate - as you can see from the pictures higher up on this page, the hotel I have been staying it is a pretty nice place, and it's inexpensive.
But, all good things must eventually come to an end - today, the hotel staff told me that the hotel would be closing for good this coming Friday. They didn't know of any other hotel in Djerba that is staying open. That is staggering news - Djerba is the second-largest tourist destination in the country, and all the hotels will be closed by the end of the week. That's like finding out that all the hotels in Orlando, Florida have closed.
To make matters worse, this coming Friday is Tunisian Independence Day - their equivalent of July 4th for Americans - not exactly the best day to have to hit the road and try to find another refuge. Sites like Booking.com and TripAdvisor.com are of no help, they show lots of availability at hotels I know are already closed or will soon be closing.
All the ferries in and out of the country are shut down until at least April 4th. The Tunisian government has announced that they are planning to shut down the one remaining operational airport in Tunis, the capital. Meanwhile, 'Europe' - in this case, the EC, which means all the European countries that can be reached by ferry from Tunisia - has closed their borders to non-citizens for the next month. So it looks like I will probably be stuck in Tunisia until late April. That is going to make it difficult to get to the Georgia Spring Rally in Suches, which begins April 23rd.
I've been in touch with the Canadian Embassy here, and it seems I am the only Canadian tourist in the country (!), hence it's not likely the Canadian government is going to organize a repatriation flight. (Maybe they might let me camp out in the Embassy's back yard for a few weeks?)
I suspect that there might be one or two hotels remaining open further north in Hammamet, the biggest tourist destination in the country, or failing that, in Tunis, the capital of the country. I can easily ride up to those cities in a day - good thing, because I have to be out of this hotel by Friday. I just hope that the hotel pricing in Tunisia doesn't suddenly swing from extremely cheap (because hotels are trying to fill rooms in the off season) to extremely expensive (because there are so few hotels still open).
Last Friday, when I rode across the country from Tozeur to Djerba, I took some pictures, but have not yet got around to posting them. Here they are:
Chott el Djerid Salt Flats
There's a huge salt flat just south of Tozeur - about 60 miles wide. The highway cuts right across the middle of it. During the rainy season, a few inches of water accumulate, but right now, it's bone-dry. It was quite strange riding across it - now I understand how desert mirages work, because frequently I would see what I thought was a town or palm plantation up ahead, only to see it disappear when I travelled forward a mile or so.
There are no radar traps or speed control systems of any kind in Tunisia, other than massive speed bumps in the towns & villages. So I wound the ST 1100 up to 'Warp 7' and gave it a bit of an Eyetalyun Tune-Up on the way across the salt flats. Good to know that at 19 years old and with about 140,000 miles on it, it will still cruise at 135 MPH (GPS groundspeed). No bugs to worry about either.
Date Palm Plantations
At the far end of the salt flats, I saw the first of many date palm plantations that I would pass that day. My past experience with palm tree plantations (in Asia) has been that they are grown to produce palm oil, but here in Tunisia, the trees are grown to produce dates, which is a big export item for this country. The only agriculture I have seen since I have been here has been either date palms or olive groves - nothing else. I guess date palms don't need much water, because I saw no evidence of irrigation systems anywhere.
Mountain Twisties!
There is a small mountain range in the middle of the country, complete with nice twisty roads like what you would expect to find in mountain areas. But this was not the place for dragging pegs, because one can never know what might be around the next corner - camels on the road, a donkey pulling a cart, or a car in the wrong lane. In Africa, life (and roadways) will always be full of surprises.
Troglodyte Houses
As you can see in the picture above, the mountain geology is sedimentary, with pronounced capstone formations at various levels. The local people have taken advantage of this by building underground homes (cave homes). All you have to do is find a capstone formation to serve as the roof, then dig out underneath that to create a dwelling. Apparently these cave homes are highly valued, because there is no need to heat or cool them. Temperatures vary significantly from day to night in the desert - it's not uncommon for the temperature to be well over 90°F in the daytime, and then have frost the same night. In the summer, daytime temperatures reach 115°F.
Happy Kids
One of the nice things about travelling in lesser-developed countries is that the ratio of kids to adults is better-balanced than it is in Europe or North America. Here in Tunisia, there are kids everywhere. I took a short (4 mile) ferry from the mainland to Djerba Island, and there were a whole bunch of local kids on the ferry boat who were just going back and forth, enjoying the day. I don't think the ferry operator charged them any fare - heck, they only charged me 35¢ to transport my motorcycle.
The kids wanted me to take pictures of them on my motorcycle, then email them the pictures. I thought that was funny as heck, but every single kid had an email address, and knew how to send the photo directly from my iPhone to their email address better than I knew. They must teach these kids two-finger phone typing in kindergarten. This particular kid was in Grade 8, and was very curious about how the motorcycle worked, and wanted to know what every button on it did. Kids here do the first two years of school in Arabic, then switch to French as the primary language of instruction from age 8 upwards. English is offered as an elective subject in high school. This kid was not too proficient in English, but he was rock-solid in French, and he also showed me how to use my iPhone for translation. I did not know that you can go to Google Translate, speak into the phone (rather than type something), and the phone then voices a translation of what you spoke. This kid knew, and he was a little surprised that I didn't know. I was embarrassed.
Anyway - that's all for now. I'll keep you all posted on how the rest of this trip turns out. So far I am very healthy and in good spirits, and I am generally enjoying my time here, logistical problems notwithstanding. So far, Tunisia only has 16 known COVID-19 cases, with the nearest one over 100 miles away.
Michael
Since Friday of last week, I have been in government-imposed self-quarantine at the Radisson Blu hotel in Djerba, Tunisia. Last Friday was when the government announced that anyone who had recently arrived in Tunisia (from anywhere) had to quarantine themselves for 14 days. So far, I've been pretty fortunate - as you can see from the pictures higher up on this page, the hotel I have been staying it is a pretty nice place, and it's inexpensive.
But, all good things must eventually come to an end - today, the hotel staff told me that the hotel would be closing for good this coming Friday. They didn't know of any other hotel in Djerba that is staying open. That is staggering news - Djerba is the second-largest tourist destination in the country, and all the hotels will be closed by the end of the week. That's like finding out that all the hotels in Orlando, Florida have closed.
To make matters worse, this coming Friday is Tunisian Independence Day - their equivalent of July 4th for Americans - not exactly the best day to have to hit the road and try to find another refuge. Sites like Booking.com and TripAdvisor.com are of no help, they show lots of availability at hotels I know are already closed or will soon be closing.
All the ferries in and out of the country are shut down until at least April 4th. The Tunisian government has announced that they are planning to shut down the one remaining operational airport in Tunis, the capital. Meanwhile, 'Europe' - in this case, the EC, which means all the European countries that can be reached by ferry from Tunisia - has closed their borders to non-citizens for the next month. So it looks like I will probably be stuck in Tunisia until late April. That is going to make it difficult to get to the Georgia Spring Rally in Suches, which begins April 23rd.
I've been in touch with the Canadian Embassy here, and it seems I am the only Canadian tourist in the country (!), hence it's not likely the Canadian government is going to organize a repatriation flight. (Maybe they might let me camp out in the Embassy's back yard for a few weeks?)
I suspect that there might be one or two hotels remaining open further north in Hammamet, the biggest tourist destination in the country, or failing that, in Tunis, the capital of the country. I can easily ride up to those cities in a day - good thing, because I have to be out of this hotel by Friday. I just hope that the hotel pricing in Tunisia doesn't suddenly swing from extremely cheap (because hotels are trying to fill rooms in the off season) to extremely expensive (because there are so few hotels still open).
Last Friday, when I rode across the country from Tozeur to Djerba, I took some pictures, but have not yet got around to posting them. Here they are:
Chott el Djerid Salt Flats
There's a huge salt flat just south of Tozeur - about 60 miles wide. The highway cuts right across the middle of it. During the rainy season, a few inches of water accumulate, but right now, it's bone-dry. It was quite strange riding across it - now I understand how desert mirages work, because frequently I would see what I thought was a town or palm plantation up ahead, only to see it disappear when I travelled forward a mile or so.
There are no radar traps or speed control systems of any kind in Tunisia, other than massive speed bumps in the towns & villages. So I wound the ST 1100 up to 'Warp 7' and gave it a bit of an Eyetalyun Tune-Up on the way across the salt flats. Good to know that at 19 years old and with about 140,000 miles on it, it will still cruise at 135 MPH (GPS groundspeed). No bugs to worry about either.
Date Palm Plantations
At the far end of the salt flats, I saw the first of many date palm plantations that I would pass that day. My past experience with palm tree plantations (in Asia) has been that they are grown to produce palm oil, but here in Tunisia, the trees are grown to produce dates, which is a big export item for this country. The only agriculture I have seen since I have been here has been either date palms or olive groves - nothing else. I guess date palms don't need much water, because I saw no evidence of irrigation systems anywhere.
Mountain Twisties!
There is a small mountain range in the middle of the country, complete with nice twisty roads like what you would expect to find in mountain areas. But this was not the place for dragging pegs, because one can never know what might be around the next corner - camels on the road, a donkey pulling a cart, or a car in the wrong lane. In Africa, life (and roadways) will always be full of surprises.
Troglodyte Houses
As you can see in the picture above, the mountain geology is sedimentary, with pronounced capstone formations at various levels. The local people have taken advantage of this by building underground homes (cave homes). All you have to do is find a capstone formation to serve as the roof, then dig out underneath that to create a dwelling. Apparently these cave homes are highly valued, because there is no need to heat or cool them. Temperatures vary significantly from day to night in the desert - it's not uncommon for the temperature to be well over 90°F in the daytime, and then have frost the same night. In the summer, daytime temperatures reach 115°F.
Happy Kids
One of the nice things about travelling in lesser-developed countries is that the ratio of kids to adults is better-balanced than it is in Europe or North America. Here in Tunisia, there are kids everywhere. I took a short (4 mile) ferry from the mainland to Djerba Island, and there were a whole bunch of local kids on the ferry boat who were just going back and forth, enjoying the day. I don't think the ferry operator charged them any fare - heck, they only charged me 35¢ to transport my motorcycle.
The kids wanted me to take pictures of them on my motorcycle, then email them the pictures. I thought that was funny as heck, but every single kid had an email address, and knew how to send the photo directly from my iPhone to their email address better than I knew. They must teach these kids two-finger phone typing in kindergarten. This particular kid was in Grade 8, and was very curious about how the motorcycle worked, and wanted to know what every button on it did. Kids here do the first two years of school in Arabic, then switch to French as the primary language of instruction from age 8 upwards. English is offered as an elective subject in high school. This kid was not too proficient in English, but he was rock-solid in French, and he also showed me how to use my iPhone for translation. I did not know that you can go to Google Translate, speak into the phone (rather than type something), and the phone then voices a translation of what you spoke. This kid knew, and he was a little surprised that I didn't know. I was embarrassed.
Anyway - that's all for now. I'll keep you all posted on how the rest of this trip turns out. So far I am very healthy and in good spirits, and I am generally enjoying my time here, logistical problems notwithstanding. So far, Tunisia only has 16 known COVID-19 cases, with the nearest one over 100 miles away.
Michael
Michael,
Sounds less than fun, will you need any special dispensation to travel further. I don't know if checks are being done by police/military in Tunisia but the movement restrictions are being rigidly enforced in most of the EU.
Good luck with travel.
Upt'North.
Sounds less than fun, will you need any special dispensation to travel further. I don't know if checks are being done by police/military in Tunisia but the movement restrictions are being rigidly enforced in most of the EU.
Good luck with travel.
Upt'North.
- Joined
- Nov 20, 2005
- Messages
- 9,518
- Location
- Cedar City, Utah
- Bike
- 12/04 ST 1300s
- 2024 Miles
- 000420
- STOC #
- 5901
Konstantin
ConSTantino
Very tricky situation to be trapped in African country with your best friend (ST) and full tank! Best wishes and post more photos please!
KK
KK
OP
OP
CYYJ
Michael
@SupraSabre - Great idea, I'll email the Canadian embassy and suggest that to them tomorrow. I'll tell 'em to tell the Americans to remember the Canadian Caper in Tehran back in 1980. The problem with the bike is that by law, I have to export it at the same time I leave the country. Maybe the Americans might send a C-130 or C5 or C-17 - heck, then I could just ride up the ramp into the back of it.
@Upt' North - it's not all that bad. I'm pretty much resigned to having to be here for the next 6 weeks or so - the challenge will be to keep the experience enjoyable. So far, it has been OK. Heck, if this hotel I am in had not announced its upcoming closure, I would have been happy to hang out here and miss all the panic happening back in the first world.
Michael
The problem with the bike is that by law, I have to export it at the same time I leave the country. Maybe the Americans might send a C-130 or C5 or C-17 - heck, then I could just ride up the ramp into the back of it. @Upt' North - it's not all that bad. I'm pretty much resigned to having to be here for the next 6 weeks or so - the challenge will be to keep the experience enjoyable. So far, it has been OK. Heck, if this hotel I am in had not announced its upcoming closure, I would have been happy to hang out here and miss all the panic happening back in the first world.
Michael
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OP
OP
CYYJ
Michael
Hi @Konstantin :
I see that you just joined our forum community - welcome from Tunisia! I have spent lots of time in Russia, but all in the far east - Anadyr, Magadan, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, those areas, and also way up in the north. I have never had the opportunity to visit your town (Moscow).
Below is a picture of me at Anadyr airport.
Michael
This ain't Tunisia...
I see that you just joined our forum community - welcome from Tunisia! I have spent lots of time in Russia, but all in the far east - Anadyr, Magadan, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, those areas, and also way up in the north. I have never had the opportunity to visit your town (Moscow).
Below is a picture of me at Anadyr airport.
Michael
This ain't Tunisia...
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Don't look now Michael, there's one big mother of a bear behind you. Shhhh.
Konstantin
ConSTantino
Hi Michael, You are always welcome here in Msk, It's not so damn cold as in Anadyr and you may stay here travelling around till you are allowed back home =)
drrod
Site Supporter
Michael,
You are probably aware, but in case you are not.......Canada government is stopping any flights from outside of the country starting this coming Sunday midnite (if I understood the announcement correctly.)
If by chance, you can get out yourself, maybe check with the Canadian embassy and see if you can leave your bike in their compound.
Good luck.
What started out as a bit of an adventure (not that it still isn't; just different) has got pretty real for you .
You are probably aware, but in case you are not.......Canada government is stopping any flights from outside of the country starting this coming Sunday midnite (if I understood the announcement correctly.)
If by chance, you can get out yourself, maybe check with the Canadian embassy and see if you can leave your bike in their compound.
Good luck.
What started out as a bit of an adventure (not that it still isn't; just different) has got pretty real for you .