To Kairouan

Today we travel to Hammamet for a short stop to tour the Medina and then continue on to the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Kairouan which was the first fully Islamic city in North Africa.

We had breakfast in the hotel again and started in the bus to Hammamet at 8:30 am arriving around 10 am. We stopped at a rest stop along the way to see more about the way Tunisian’s live. Donna saw this sign and laughed.

There was a display of powders that are mixed with oil and sweetener to make a nut butter. There were numerous flavors, sesame, almond, etc. They were giving free tastings.

The Hammamet Medina (walled city, often now a market) there is small.

Our walking tour took us around the seaside of the walled city, and over to the cemetery. Our guide had buried his father earlier this year in this cemetery and he described to us about the customs he followed for the burial. It was really interesting.

There is a small cemetery for foreigners on the other side of the road. The city keeps it up because an Iranian offical falsely accused of corruption chose to be buried here. A kitten seen in that cemetery.

We had some free time to visit the markets afterwards and some of the alleyways are very narrow, so it was best to not take a group into it.

Our guide is from Hammamet and has a house there. He invited everyone in the tour group to his house for lunch. His mom and sister live down the street from him and between them and a friend of his who grilled the chicken and sausage, much of the meal was prepared when we arrived.

The meal consisted of three courses, the first Mechouia salad consisting of grilled vegetables (onions, tomato’s, green peppers, salt, pepper and a touch of cumin. His mom adds garlic as well.)

Second was Couscous Mayou, which made in the Hammamet region to mark the beginning of the wheat and barley harvest.

Couscous, steamed fine semolina, yellow and black raisins, chickpeas and almonds. There is lamb and saffron in the sauce when cooked for flavor.

Watermelon and cantaloupe for dessert.

Our guide has a large garden with fruit trees, corn, tomatoes and other vegetables growing. We picked the tomatoes fresh for topping the Mechouia salad.

After lunch we boarded the bus over to a gelato shop (it seems that many of our group are ice cream lovers and our guide is responsive to our desires, taking us to the best shop in Hammamet, Mongelli.) Donna really liked the pistachio gelato (I didn’t get much.) The dark chocolate ice cream was amazing.

On our drive, we saw a number of fencelines between fields that had collected lots of blowing trash. The trash reminds me of driving along the interstate highways in the US in the early 1970’s. Then the Keep America Beautiful campaign helped stop the littering and created mechanisms for people to get credit for going out and cleaning up the trash that does accumulate. Think of the signs along roads today crediting different groups for picking up trash along that part of the road.

There were also shepherds out tending their flocks.

After arriving in Kairouan, we took a brief walk through the Medina to our hotel. We stopped for the ladies who didn’t have a head covering to get scarves for the mosque visit tomorrow. We also stopped to see some of the Makroudh treats in Kairouan.

At the hotel, we saw that barn swallows were flying above the pool and sometimes even splashing into the pool briefly while flying. It’s rather difficult to get a good photo of a barn swallows flying.

An included supper at the buffet in the La Kasbah hotel tonight. Unfortunately, we ate well at lunch and many people said that they were not that hungry. Our guide was disappointed that his football (soccer) team lost this evening.