Monday, April 14, 2008 – SFAX

We left Djerba early and headed for the ferry terminal. You can access Djerba via a causeway (which we used the day before) or via a ferry. It was nice to be on the water after so many days driving through the desert.

Views from the ferry:









We drove from Djerba to Gabes, where we stopped for 30 minutes to visit the spice market. The spice hawkers were very aggressive and most of us left the market in a few minutes. Outside of the market Mom and I met up with Tamara, who had discovered a carpentry shop while holding the toilet door closed for her mother. She led us back there and a man who spoke German described the type of furniture they created, the type of wood they used, and where the wood came from. It was lovely to smell the wood chips and rest in the cool of the shop.

Views from the spice market:







After Gabes we drove north and stopped for lunch at a roadside café. We had salad, pommes frites, and grilled lamb. Unfortunately the lamb was mostly bone and was raw in some places. We still cleaned our plates, because we knew it would be hours before dinner.

Our next stop was the hotel in Sfax. It’s located in the heart of downtown, unlike the other hotels where we’ve stayed, which are located in “zones touristiques” that are typically several kilometers away from town so that the tourists are protected from themselves. A few people on the tour went out and explored the Medina. You can guess from the number of posts today that I stayed inside and blogged. I am an unashamed nerd.