Tunisia: Tuesday, March 2 - Salt lake, Tozeur students, Date palm oasis, and Mountain oasis

This day was quite the busy day. We woke up around 5:15am, had breakfast at 6am, and was on our way to Chott el-Jerid (salt lake) by 6:30am. This was really cool place to be. It's about 6 million years old and it's just a big sheet of salt. There's a little stream of water running along both sides of the road, and some parts were blood red. It used to be completely under water thousands of years ago. It was the strangest place to be with absolutely nothing but flat, white land in every direction.











It was ridiculously cold and windy there.

We continued driving through the salt lake until we reached Tozeur to meet the university students at the school where Maria teaches Italian (she's such an interesting person, right?!) I only got a picture of the empty classroom so I don't have pictures of the students but they pretty much look like everyday kids, some of the girls had their hair covered but they were up on their fashion like anybody in the States.



Some of the students spoke fairly good english but most knew Spanish and some knew Italian. It was interesting to hear some conversations but it was quite overwhelming because it pretty much was a flood of students and they all wanted to know you and take pictures and ask a bunch of questions. At times you kind of felt like a bit of a celebrity. We only spent maybe an hour there and got back on the bus. Many of the guys had marriage proposals apparently. haha.

Next we headed to the date palm oasis where we rode by horse and carriage into the forest of palm trees to learn about how dates are grown and cared for. I don't really remember much to be honest but the man telling us about them must have learned his english from a british person because he spoke it with an accent.









Victoria and I riding like the wind! Ok not really.



This is the man with the accent telling us about the date process. He's holding the pollen from the males tree.



This guy showed us how they climb up the palm tree with NO SHOES! We were told that they go up each tree this way 3 times, the first time to pollinate the female and wrap the pollen branch with a rope, the second to take off the rope, and the third to pick the dates.



Our driver gave us these flowers on our way back to the bus! Then asked for a tip. Thanks for ruining the moment driver man. And no you will not get a tip.

After the date palm oasis we had a bit of free time to go get lunch. We found a little restaurant that served brik and couscous. Perfecto.

Afterward we got into 4x4's which were basically land rovers that took us up to the mountain oasis where we saw Chebika and Tamerza. Chebika had such an amazing view. Unfortunately there were stands and people selling things all in the oasis so it totally killed the "oasis" vibe but I still enjoyed it.



The land rovers



This is the border control booth for Algeria. To the left of this picture you can see straight over to another country!





Humaira and I on top of the mountain









After Chebika, we went to Tamerza which basically was just another place to shop. Apparently only a few months before there was a flood that wiped out everything in the little canyon that we were in so much of where you used to be able to walk was fenced off.

On the way to Tamerza there is a spot you can stop and see a view of both Tunisia and Algeria from high up. We took a class picture there!





Algeria is behind the mountains to the right.

On our way back to the bus we did a surprise off roading experience through the desert which was a ton of fun! Thank god for seat belts! Our driver played all sorts of interesting music from dance arabic music to usher to....get this.....the MACARENA! I almost died of laughter haha

We took the long drive back to the hotel from the mountain oasis on the bus. We passed through the salt lake again and stopped to watch a bit of the sunset!









Alyx and I attempted some ninja kicks on the salt lake. haha.



I met this little guy behind a stack of wood next to the pit stop that we were stopped at. He was so happy to see me but I was so sad to see him chained up in unsanitary conditions with the harsh wind and no where to take cover. He must have been so bored too. I wanted to take him with us!

We finally made it back to the hotel hours and hours later (we were on the other side of Tunisia!) and had dinner and immediately passed out from the long day.