There are no limits except the ones you place
Having been stuck in Vienna for quite a while sorting out Paul’s mum’s estate, we were both really keen to get away on a trip. Now that he had a bit more money to spend, Paul kitted us both out with new bikes and the best wet-weather gear we could find. We couldn’t wait to try out all our new toys.
Paul had spent a bit of time in North Africa and decided he wanted to show me around Tunisia. After a bit of planning, we found ourselves on board a flight to Djerba, a large island off the Tunisian coast. I was so excited to be heading off on a new adventure and I had butterflies in my tummy at the thought of visiting Africa.
When we arrived in Djerba, I was relieved to see our bike boxes waiting for us. Some local kids watched us assemble our bikes — they must have thought we were mad as we biked away from the airport and into the nearby city of Houmt Souk. We dossed down in a cheap hotel and were early to bed to prepare ourselves for biking around this beautiful island.
The next day, as we rode out of Houmt Souk we were surrounded by hundreds of cheeky faced kids who ran alongside our bikes. One of the boys managed to keep up with me on a bike that must have been twice as old as he was!
It had rained heavily over the previous week and the roads were flooded. Paul and I decided to ride on through it and my little friend carried on beside us, leaving the rest of the kids behind at the water’s edge. Houses are under water and drains were overflowing. Paul and I soon realised that our planned route might not be passable as many of the unsealed roads we wanted to follow were likely to be flooded. This wasn’t a problem we’d reckoned on given that Tunisia is a country known for its lack of water. Eventually, having forded plenty of puddles, we reached the end of the island Djerba and caught the ferry across to the mainland. This provided me with my first look at the Sahara Desert — a stretch of sand that would go on to have a huge influence over my life in years to come.
A long, straight road took us through groves of olive trees and dusty, unkempt villages. By chance we witnessed a near-fatal accident when a child ran in front of an oncoming bus and was all but flattened. Only the quick reactions of the driver prevented a tragedy from occurring. The 3-metre long skid marks on the road showed just how close it had been. The frightened, crying child ran into the arms of his mother and buried his face under the layers of her robes. A little shocked and praising the efforts of the bus driver, we continued on.
On our first night in the desert, we pushed our bikes 400 metres off the road. The air was cold and the sky filled with stars. After so long in Vienna, it was nice to sleep outside in the open air again. The next morning, we got up at 5.15. We were keen to get started as soon as the sun came up. We packed and sat in the cold waiting for the sun to make its appearance — which it finally did at 6.30 am. That was a lesson for us both to stay in our warm sleeping bags and wait for the first warming rays of the sun to appear before racing out onto our bikes.
When we finally got moving it wasn’t long before we came across a police patrol checking people’s documents. I smiled nervously at the officer as I handed over my New Zealand passport. As I suspected it would, it aroused some interest among the law enforcement officers. Not many people from New Zealand go to that part of the world and even fewer go on bikes. The police officers couldn’t believe that we had chosen to travel so far by bicycle. It must have been incomprehensible to them that so-called ‘rich’ Europeans would choose to cycle when they must surely be able to afford a car.
As soon as Paul had assured them we were married (even though we were only engaged) and that Tunisia was a beautiful country with very friendly people, they let us pass without any problem. We were glad we could go and relieved that we were spared the need to explain our first aid kit, which contained all sorts of vitamins and emergency medication because Paul had heard that misunderstandings over drug abuse in Arab countries can have very unpleasant consequences.
By early afternoon we reached Chenini, a Berber mountain village. A little old Berber woman with a beautifully wrinkled and tattooed face asked us if we wanted to photograph her. We paid the $1.50 she charged, took our shots and she went on her way. Paul was pleased to have the opportunity to take photographs of a local woman. In many parts of the world, particularly in Islamic countries, it is considered rude to take photographs of people, especially women, without first getting their permission.
Below us, in the valley, we could see into the backyards of houses where camels sat in the sunshine and women went about their daily chores. Up by the mosque were a handful of laughing children on a donkey. Before long they spotted us and came running down to beg for pens, sweets and money. I made the mistake of giving one of the kids a small coin and soon my pockets were emptied of all coins. Once we’d run out of things to give the kids we knew it was time to leave.
Our next stage lead us through the mountains of Dahar on a track whose condition left a lot to be desired. As we climbed, I started having trouble with my left knee, which I’d overstrained. We’d left Vienna in winter and I was now bearing the consequences of not having trained sufficiently before setting off on this trip. But I carried on, pedalling with one leg, which was a difficult task on a hill track with a fully loaded bike. We crawled along at walking speed for the rest of the day. Time and again I had to dismount and push while Paul waited for me.
‘At this speed we’ll never get out of here,’ I moaned. I knew we had to cover more than 100 kilometres of piste before reaching the next village.
Just before nightfall, I heard a pop and pheeeewww. My tyre had blown. Paul fixed it hastily while I tried to find a good place to camp. Not far on, we found an olive plantation, which we figured would provide us with some shelter overnight. Meanwhile the sky darkened and the wind started to rustle in the trees. I was in bed by 8 pm, trying to keep my knee as straight as possible in the hope that it would recover a bit overnight.
At about three in the morning, I was woken as sand blew into my mouth. Outside it was blowing a gale and fine grains of sand had managed to find their way into our tent — not a good sign for the next day’s ride.
When I next woke, the wind had calmed down and my knee felt better so we carried on slowly up the mountain pass. Soon we came to a fork in the track and the view ahead commanded our respect. A sea of desert hills that all look confusingly similar stretched out as far as the horizon. At the risk of getting hopelessly lost, we had to decide which path to take. We had only two and a half litres of water left and could easily get lost if the track continued to split like this.
We decided to carry on until four that afternoon and we marked the path with stones as we went. That way we knew that if we hadn’t found the next town by four, we could turn around and follow our tracks back to the fork. It took us five hours of hard going before we found a rusted old sign with hand-painted writing — Toujane. At last, confirmation that we’d taken the right track. Two hours later, we arrived at our long awaited destination, Matmata, where some of the original Star Wars movies had been filmed. That fact still draws heaps of visitors to Matmata today.
As soon as we were alone, I searched for a hidden spot in which to answer an urgent call of nature. This is a very difficult undertaking in a country where foreigners are of such interest that, at any time, someone will pop out of nowhere and disturb your most private moment. I got off my bike, ran up a bank then jumped down the other side. Not the smartest thing as I landed with my head one foot away from the power line. Even though I’d come perilously close to electrocution, I still needed to go to the toilet so I hastily dealt with business before heading back to the safety of the road.
On the following morning we tackled our next trail with no real difficulties. By lunchtime, we’d arrived at a town called El Hamma. Even though we’d had a cruisy morning, it wasn’t long before all hell broke loose. At the entrance to the village a group of 30 or 40 children and teenagers were playing soccer. One of them saw us and yelled, ‘TOURIST!’ They all dropped what they were doing and stormed towards us.
‘Uh oh, we’re in for trouble, just speed up a bit,’ yelled Paul. Some of the kids blocked the road yelling at us to stop. Others gathered stones for the attack. I pulled my sunglasses down and tried to look determined as I cycled through the mob. Most of them jumped out of my way at the last second but a couple of them decided to run after me. Thankfully we managed to get away unscathed despite the hail of stones that followed us. But it wasn’t over. All the way into town we ran a gauntlet of stone throwers, spitting, yelling and laughter. It was an unnerving welcome.
In the centre of town things were quieter so we stopped to stock up with supplies. As soon as we had dismounted we were surrounded by kids. Thank goodness they were friendly — all smiles and laughter. Still, we left town as fast as we could, glad to be alone again.
For the first time on tour we had a strong tail wind that sent us flying at 30 kilometres an hour over the straights towards the beginning of the sand desert. In a town called Douz we hired a guide for a two-day camel trek into the dunes. Our guide, Yousef, was soon nicknamed Joe. He introduced us to our camels, Mitsi and Wobbly. I squealed with a mixture of fright and delight as Mitsi stood up. I clung tightly to Mitsi’s saddle for the first few minutes until I got used to her long, rolling, stride. Joe led us out into the dunes pulling the camels along behind him while we enjoyed the ride and view.
Despite the scenery, what caught most of my attention were the camels. They were such comical creatures who make rude noises, have bad breath, dribble a lot and who, when mistreated, can take revenge on their owners. Paul told me he’d heard of camels that killed their owners by sitting on them in the middle of the night. At the end of our ride through the dunes Joe tied the front legs of each camel together to make sure they didn’t go wandering off in the night. I hoped they wouldn’t avenge themselves on us for that! I didn’t fancy Mitsi’s heavy backside squashing the wind out of me in the night!
Joe prepared two fires to cook our evening meal of ragout and flat bread. The bread was prepared from flour, water and salt and kneaded into a large, round shape that was laid in the ashes of one fire and covered. Meanwhile our ragout was cooking in a big pot. After two hours our meal was ready. To Joe’s delight we all ate in the traditional Tunisian manner, out of the same pot, dipping the still-warm bread in the stew. It was — and still is — one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten.
As the fire died down, the cold crept in and we retired to our hand-woven woollen blankets for the night. Next morning Joe had the fire going before the sun was up and the bread-making ritual was repeated before the camel’s legs were released and we were on our way back.
Our next stop was El Faouar, an unexciting little village that marked the end of human habitation at the edge of the desert. Paul had promised me that we’d check into a hotel here and I couldn’t wait. Since our arrival in Tunisia I hadn’t even been able to wash my hands properly, let alone the rest of me, due to the severe water shortage.
When we arrived in El Faouar, we followed the sign that said ‘hotel’ and we were surprised to find a very grand three-star hotel in this poor looking village. We were even more surprised to find that a room would cost us 36 dinars — about NZ$50 — a fortune by Tunisian standards. I was really disappointed although we agreed that it was way too much for our budget. As we turned to leave, the man on reception took pity on us and offered us a room for just 20 dinars. How could we refuse?
After a blissful hot shower, Paul and I went wandering in the dunes. I felt a bit guilty for having enjoyed the luxury of hot water and a nicely decorated room while all the local people drew their water from wells and had very basic houses. The people were glad to earn money any way they could and even the children didn’t let an opportunity pass. From over a kilometre away three kids had recognised us as tourists and had come scrambling over as fast as they could, one carried a sand rose, a stone from the Sahara, and another a baby desert fox with whom he posed for photographs.
The poor wee animal tried constantly to escape and the fear in his eyes said everything about the torture he was going through. I wanted to buy his freedom but he would have died out in the desert alone. With a heavy heart and lighter pockets we continued on our way.
Back at the hotel it was dinner time and a beautiful buffet was set out before us. After weeks of living on whatever food we could buy out in the countryside, I was excited at the prospect of a proper meal. With eyes as big as dinner plates, I rather too enthusiastically shovelled the food into my mouth. Uh-oh, what was that? A whole chilli pepper burned its way down my throat and into my stomach. I felt like there was steam pouring out my ears. The drinks in the restaurant were way too expensive for our tight budget and even in pain, I knew that drinking local water wasn’t going to help things at all so I just had to try and breathe through the heat.
Paul laughed as I desperately coughed and spluttered trying to get rid of the intense chilli heat. I tried to keep on eating as I’d been so excited at the prospect of a good meal but my appetite had been well and truly scorched.
In the morning, I awoke to the sight of Paul coming out of the bathroom gagging. During the night it had rained and the sewerage system hadn’t coped with the extra water. As a result, the hotel pipes had backed up and the smell wafting up made this strong man weak at the knees. Needless to say we vacated our room early.
Our plan for the day had been to ride over a sand trail that was marked on our map. When we got to where the trail was supposed to start we found that it didn’t exist. We were left with two choices, either bike or take a bus back over the 70 kilometres we’d ridden to get to El Faouar. We opted for the second choice and were pleasantly surprised at the bus driver’s willingness to stick us, bikes and all, on board. The only problem was that the bus that left El Faouar almost empty filled with more and more people at each stop along the way. Before long, we could hardly breathe for the people, goats, chickens and goods jammed in around us.
After one and a half hours packed in like sardines, we finally arrived in Kebili, where we hopped off the bus and back onto our bikes. We then headed north to cross Chott El Djerid, a 7000-square-kilometre salt lake, the largest of its kind in the Sahara. As we made our way across the lake, the wind blew ever stronger in our faces and the kilometres were slow to pass. The road was long, flat and straight, giving me plenty of time to digest some of the experiences, sights, smells and images of the lake.
After 20 kilometres of flat sand, we arrived at the start of the salt crystals and a landscape I could never have imagined — a flat sea of dried salt crystals, resembling ice, stretched as far as the eye could see. It was how I imagined Antarctica would look, which was pretty strange in the middle of the sandy Sahara.
We rode all day and in the evening we still found ourselves far from solid ground so we decided to camp on the salt lake not far from a wrecked bus that had been abandoned after it had sunk into the salt crust. Even though the salt looked quite solid, parts of it were like quicksand that you could disappear into, never to be seen again. Aside from this, many people had lost their lives in this place suffering from lack of water and overcome by heat, but that was during the summer months.
Even though the area only gets about 100 millimetres of rain each year, we were worried that some of it was going to fall overnight. A part of the lake already stood underwater and we didn’t want to wake to find that we were, too.
We pushed our bikes about a kilometre off the road and set up camp. The atmosphere was unique and the sunset unbelievably beautiful. I could hardly believe that less than 24 hours ago I was wandering in the sand dunes of the Sahara and now I was sitting in a landscape that resembled the Antarctic. The extremes of this land impressed me.
In the morning we were up early and were surprised to find that, although it hadn’t rained, the ground water levels had risen overnight and the water was slowly flowing across the crust of salt. The edge of the water was now only 150 metres away from our tent. Just as well we’d decided to get up to photograph the sunrise or we could have been swimming back to the road.
After we left the salt lake, we headed for the start of the Djebel en-Negeb mountains on the border with Algeria. We had been told to expect stringent military controls but were pleasantly surprised when we were waved through. They must have felt sure that terrorists wouldn’t be travelling by bicycle.
The atmosphere in this part of the country was different as it is so isolated. Whenever we rode into an oasis I felt like an actor in a Wild West movie heading for the last frontier. The oases were dirty and desolate, many buildings only half built. Groups of men lay around in doorways and on the ground, draped in blankets playing dominos, smoking water pipes and chatting.
In one village we visited a restaurant. It was just a dirty concrete shelter with plastic chairs. With dirty knives and forks we ate a surprisingly tasty meal trying not to think about what it might have been. We ordered seconds, and would have devoured a third course if we hadn’t been too embarrassed to ask. We washed our meal down with Coke, to avoid the water as an insurance against the dreaded dysentery common in such countries, and carried on our way.
Eventually we made our way back to Djerba to catch our flight back to Vienna. My first experience of the Sahara had been one of impressive landscapes, and exotic, interesting and friendly people — for the most part! I had enjoyed the excitement of discovering a new land and culture with a rich history, new-to-me religion and interesting traditions. It had given me a chance to view the world from a different perspective and had opened my mind and broadened my attitudes to encompass a different way of life. Even though I’d travelled extensively in Europe, this was the first time that I had been immersed in a culture completely different from Western society and I loved it.
Transporting bikes
Some airlines will carry bicycles free of charge but it is always advisable to book your bicycle in when you purchase your ticket and to limit your total luggage to no more than 25 kilograms.
Each airline has their own packing requirements but it is usually sufficient when the pedals are removed, the handle bars are turned and the air from the tyres released.
When possible it is advisable to pack the bicycle in a bike box available from most cycle shops. This protects the bike from damage and avoids any problems with difficult airline employees who may want to make life hard for you.