Tunisia: Monday, March 1 - Souk in Douz

We arrived back at the hotel after the night in the desert and were free to take a nap or grab a quick shower and meet Maria downstairs to go to the souk in Douz to do a little shopping and have lunch. As tired as I was I didn't want to miss out on seeing Douz and checking out the shops. We first decided to eat and a group of about 8 of us went into a little restaurant to sit down and have lunch. I, of course, had brik and couscous again. The lunch took a little longer than we thought so we had to kind of rush through the souk which was just a small circle of shops.

This was probably my favorite place to shop. Everyone was very nice and not pushy and loved to chat you up about anything. Sadok also has a henna tattoo shop in this souk but I didn't have a chance to stop by and get something done. I did however meet one of Sadok's friends, Muhammad, who has a shop across the piazza where he makes handcrafted jewelry of Sahara family tribe symbols. I loved that style of jewelry the most in Tunisia. He showed us which one was his family's symbol. I also saw Sadok's family symbol, which he always has on and told us a little about during the night in the desert. Muhammad also knows Maria and had made a ring for her that she wanted to give to her husband as a gift. So it was nice to meet someone somewhat randomly who knew people you did. I gave him my email address so hopefully we'll keep in touch.



After spending several hours at the souk we headed back to the hotel to pick up the people that didn't come and went to see a place called El Faouar. It was another desert town with a really tall dune. There were kids playing soccer on the sand, but otherwise I wasn't completely sure why we trucked out there bectause it took about an hour and I had plenty of dunes to last me till next week from the desert the night before. But, hey I was in Tunisia. Can't be that awful.

After that we had several hours (like 4) to kill before dinner so I took some pictures of the room than sat outside near the pool for a bit then relaxed in the room when the bugs started to get annoying.









I loved this hotel. The pillows were the best pillows I've EVER slept on. And the bathroom was just one room with a shower in it's own little walled off area on the right. It was a really nice hotel room. You could climb out the window onto a patio that wasn't really suppose to be walked on but hey, we got a balcony!

That night for dinner there was brik and other things I can't remember now. Every hotel has a buffet style for both breakfast and dinner. And it's all you can eat. You can bet I took them up on that.