Today in Tunisia

5:15PM May 6

LaGoulette (Tunis) Tunisia

Well it has been a couple of days since I wrote. All continues very well. Yesterday was a sea day and we had a good time on board. Marlene won the Explorations Café daily trivia contest and the Snow Macartney team with two helpers convincingly won the Mega Trivia Challenge against about 100 people it was the third time we tried but we got 14 of 15 plus the bonus question (What was the name of the dog in Peter Pan?). Lyle and I entered the ping pong tourney and the ladies went to tea and learned how to make bananas Flambé. The result is that we each have about 40 Dam Dollars to be exchanged the last day for Holland American logoed merchandise. Dinner was formal and after we watched the Marriage Game again (we would have a harder time with this tour’s questions, this week the newlyweds won) we went to bed early. We lost an hour which we will pick up tonight.

At 8AM we joined 1100 other passengers on tour buses, but we were lucky getting on bus #2 getting out early. We learned about the country of Tunisia…10 million populations in three regions the north for agriculture, the middle for olive trees and grazing and the Sahara desert in the South. Carthage was about 10 miles from the commercial port. We toured some ruins (a roman bath from 300 AD) and learned about Carthage founded by a woman from Phoenicia around 800 BC and the home of Hannibal and the site of the three Punic Wars. The last one ended in 146 BC. Roman rule lasted about 500 years then came the Vandals who destroyed much of the statutes. Next the Turks and the Byzantines took over finally Arabs. The French ruled from 1880 to 1956,

We toured Bardo Museum for an hour, it has wonderful Mosaics, Roman artifacts and a glimpse into palace life under Arabs. Saw a bedroom for the Harem. Lots of souvenir peddlers especially at our next stop in the Medina where we visited a Souk drank mint tea and learned about handicrafts (read carpet demo again) finally we had lunch around 1:30 at a Roman motif restaurant where we had a buffet and wine (a vin rose… the worst wine yet) It was near the cisterns built in emperor Hadrian times that saved water that flowed from aqueducts from the mountain miles away in giant cisterns which are partially excavated. We had toured the baths earlier in the morning.

We then went by St. Louis Cathedral built after the Crusades for the son of a French king and saw more Punic ruins. We finished up in shops at Sidi Bou Said where everything was whitewashed with Blue shutters and window panes… very pretty. Marlene bargained for some ceramic bowls I found some playing cards and finally bought a magnet (those who have seen our refrigerator know there is little room left). The bus made a quick stop at the American cemetery for WWII dead some 2100 graves very well maintained and pretty. We got back to the ship and some enterprising folks were doing camel rides and playing Arabic music (but alas, out 2 gig memory card decided to give out just them some 1450 photos). Sorry you do not get to see the pictures but schedule a three day visit to our house and you may be able to see them all…

Marlene just stopped by to tell me she had decided not to do a tour in Rome on Saturday that I had discussed with the Vantage tour group. So maybe Charlotte and I will go by ourselves. The Snows flight is very early Sunday AM while ours is not until 11.

Whoops the engines just started I guess we about to leave another port. At this one there were 6 cruise ships again so the cruise industry is surely supporting Tunisia.

I thoroughly enjoyed my day in Africa...