crows to burnaby

Today was the only day that Natasha and I would both be here that we're not at the conference, so we made plans to visit the Roman ruins at Carthage and wherever else we could go in a day. Our driver, Wahid (I have no idea if that's the spelling, of course!) picked us up at 9, and took us through Tunisian wine country towards Carthage.

Tunisia seems to be, at any given moment, either brightly colourful or bland and beige. I'm fascinated by the immense walls of cacti that frequently separate the fields. It's like nature's own barbed-wire fence, only green and beautifully embedded into the landscape. The highways are pretty normal by North American standards, and the driving is frenetic but not terrifying. On the way we got to see more of where the "real" people are, and we learned that where we are staying, Yasmine Hammamet, is a completely new resort town, most of it built in 2003. That explains why it is relatively sparse apart from hotels, discotheques and La Medina, and why it feels artifical: it is.

Touring Carthage consists of visiting several separate sites. Our guide, a polite but not particularily outgoing fellow, waited in the car while we visited each site. Not wanting the added expense of another guide at each site, we wandered without direction and decided to look up the information later. So I've just learned that the first site we visited, called the Tophet, was in fact a place where infants and young children were sacrificed to appease the gods. We knew it was an infant burial ground, but that critical word "sacrifice" somehow didn't make it onto the English version of the informational poster we read at the site. Puts a slightly different spin on things now knowing that "Tophet" means "place of burning".

We stopped briefly at a port that may or may not have been where Hannibal came ashore - our guide sounded a little uncertain on that point - and continued on to the Antoine baths, which is probably the most famous and photogenic of the sites, being very large and right on the water. This was my favourite, and it was what I'd been looking forward to the most.

I'd been looking forward to it partly because I was anticipating a real feeling of time and age, looking at what would be the oldest place in which I had ever set foot. I didn't really have that feeling at all; if anything, I felt more like it was just easier to visualize being in that time period and what it would have felt like to walk around, be part of it. Of course, you have to use your imagination to reduce the wear on the walls, replace the missing stones and decide what each building and room might have been for. But it's easy to see that it would have been a lovely place to be a wealthy Roman, relaxing in the bathhouses before stepping out to feel the pleasant breeze from the ocean. Not a bad way to spend your time.

We continued on to what used to be a residential area further uphill, with a lovely view and a lot of mosaics to look at. It dawned on me for the first time that not only did people have to make the mosaic one piece at a time, but they had to shape the stones for the mosaic too. There were more sculptures here as well, most of them headless (even the one of a large bird).

Somewhere along the way the zipper to my purse had become stuck closed, with fabric caught in it. Neither I nor Natasha nor our guide could force the zipper open, pry the fabric out, or make it move in any way; I had resigned myself to cutting it up with some scissors later in the day. On the way out I took an interest in a small bronze horse sculpture. (The seller, a weathered old man, assured me he had excavated it himself, but the museums wouldn't pay him for it. Yeah... that seems likely.) I haggled him down to one-third his price, then enlisted his help getting my purse open. Ironic, I thought, that I was so concerned on this trip about bringing a purse that wouldn't be easy for someone to get their hand into; here I was now needing a stranger to help me get to my money! He finally made some headway, I was able to just get enough of a hand in to get to my wallet, and the deal for my little fake horse was sealed.

We moved onwards to an amphitheatre, which was being restored, and then another site hosting a cathedral, which was closed for renovations, and the Carthage Museum, which wasn't much different from any other museum with ancient goodies. The main draw of this place for me was the absolutely spectacular view of the town and the water and the mountains behind, looking like something from a painting.

Wahid took us to Sidi Bou Said, a beautiful village on the water. You may have seen photos of it before - it's painted entirely white with blue accents, He dropped us off at the bottom of the hill, and we browsed our way up the winding streets, ignoring as usual the touristy trinkets and looking for the excellent view we'd been promised. A seller put a falcon on my arm trying to convince me to pose for (and pay for) a photo with it - I wouldn't fall for it and started walking away with it before he gave up. I took more photos of doors than I know what to do with. We stopped at Cafe Des Delicés, a hillside cafe with a multilevel layout and a panoramic view, and had crepes and juice before making our way back down.

From here we went to Tunis and a real medina, but that'll have to be a story for tomorrow since it's already 10:15 pm and I need some sleep for tomorrow's conference.