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