Escape from the City...

Sorry that internet is rather sparse on this voyage so far...

Our Tunisia travels have summed up quite nicely after our visit to the amazing Colliseum at El Jem - its a Roman colliseum rising out of the desert between the oceanside resort town of Sousse and the commercial port of Sfax. It was extra cool because we could climb the stairs and see everything from the highest perspective, looking out across the flat and very hot horizon.

In Sfax we stayed right in the heart of the medina walled city; I felt a bit like Aladdin with the souk below my window where vendors sold just about everything beneath striped sheets hung between buildings to shade the walkway.

We took a bus to Douz "the Gateway of the Sahara" and spent a few days with a Bedouin hotelier named Kamel who took us off-roading in his associate"s Tacoma and arranged for us a day long Camel trek complete with traditional Bedouin meal and bread baked in the sand. Super awesome, except those camels burp really loud and have flatulant problems. Our dromadaire guide Bechir was very cool and taught us how to write our names in Arabic. (PS we will be finding Sahara desert sand in everything for the rest of the trip Im sure)



But the nasty heat made us decide to detour from Tunisia and head early to Palermo and Sicily instead of going to Naples later this week. We have had some really crazy overnight transport stories (met an awesome Santa Claus-esque Frenchman on the ferry from Tunis to Palermo, Jean-Louis, who test drives cars for Citroen - just made a solo super trek through North Africa over the last 2 months!).

We have been soaking up Agrigento (SPECTACULAR Roman temple ruins), Catania and now Taormina, and also soaking up some splendid gelato and pizza...but its true that this is the motherland of the Guido- met some on the Train yesterday, for sure!