Dougga and Bulla Regia

We have spent the day doing Roman ruins. We spent the morning at Dougga which is simply stunning. There is an almost completely in tact Roman temple dominating the town and walking up the steps to its main entrance you really felt you had gone back 2000 years. The view from the temple over the surrounding countryside was breathtaking. The theater is also one of the best we've seen again cut into the hillside south facing and a stunning view of the valley. The town is isolated away from any modern development so you can reaLly imagine the streets bustling with people and noise. We loved it!

We then went to Bulla Regia which is much less well preserved. The things we had come to see were the mosaics, still in situ in the Baths and the underground houses the rich people built to escape the heat. You could have simply moved a some furniture back in and lived in them they are so well preserved. The floors are covered in mosaics and the central courtyard columns still have their fluting and at the top have ornately carved stone.
So, another day, another Roman ruin...
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Carthage and Beyond

We ended up spending 3 nights by the sea in Carthage. We even took the tandem out for a day cycling round the various punic and Roman ruins. These sites are not the best we will see on this tour, but the fact that they played such an important role history makes then somehow come alive. The old Punic ports, now just glorified ponds, once saw the worlds most powerful fleet berthed here and the models and excavations really help you visualise it. The Antonine baths cover an enormous area - even for a modern pool complex and much of the lower ground floor remains in tact directly adjacent both the sea and the new Presidential palace. Allegedly you must not point your camera at the Palace even by accident, but we weren't immediately shouted at or shot when we did. We were however moved on by the guards on our cycle home when, exhausted and half way up another big hill, we stopped next to the Palace. After recovering we cycled into Sidi Bou Said, a picturesque almost European Mediterranean town sat on top of a cliff overlooking the sea. The town is completely white with blue doors and windows and is a huge tourist attraction for Tunisians and foreigners alike. The doors are all decorated and really beautiful and naturally enough the souvenirs sellers have many mini door for sale. We really loved these doors so thought we'd buy one and asked how much? 150 dinar we were told. After haggling we got it for 15 (and the seller seemed happy with this price).
After collecting our carnet yesterday and having lunch at a posh cafe du thé in the centre of Tunis we have now moved on to Douga. We could have changed planets the difference is so great. Douga has some of the most fabulous Roman ruins and the Roman town is situated on a hillside overlooking the new. We are unfortunately not allowed to camp next to the ruins and has been sent to camp outside the Police station where we have been joined by 4 French motorhomes. The town is ramshackle and not pleasant, unlike Tunis you rarely see a woman, and many of the ones you do see are wearing traditional clothes. The cafes have virtually no women in them and walking through the town you certainly feel people watching you. Some people say bonjour and others ignore you, but on the whole people are generally nice to us.

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Welcome to Africa

We're sitting in a car park plotted up for the night with the sun setting behind us and the waves crashing on the shore In front at Carthage. Couples are strolling along the promenade in front of us wrapped up in winter coats and we've just put the heating on! We arrived off the ferry in the dark 2 days ago after filling in numerous forms and getting them stamped by various officials in what was a fairly well organized port. We had managed to get off the ship last - so busy chatting to a German that in the end they had to make an aNnouncement asking us to move our van off the car deck. When we got to Taffy it was sitting alone in the middle of the deck and the Italian crew were getting a touch animated. This proved fortuitous as we just followed the 20 motor homes on an organised tour out of the port to their overnight pitch and joined them for our first night.
The next day we drove into Tunis and parked up for our second night. We walked into the city and managed to get accosted by the captain of the ferry who had dropped an envelope on the ground. We made the mistake of calling him and giving him his envelope which resulted in a long chat lots of hand shaking then an appeal for cash. We even saw the guys ID card so think he was actually the Captain! 10 minutes later and we'd been collared by a 'friendly' local who turned out to want to sell us carpets and then the family scented oil for £18 for 10 ml - he was down to £5 before he figured out Linda was related to Scrooge And we left. Another 10 minutes and Jon had to extract someone's hand from his inside jacket pocket and another 10 and we were thinking what the hell have we done.

24 hours later and we've visited the fabulous Bardot museum and seen (and walked all over) some outstanding mosaics and found our little plot up and are beginning to settle in. We always find the first 48 hours anywhere the most difficult and certainly Tunisia has taken this to a new level, but we are sitting in Taffy, in the ancient city of Carthage, looking out at the med, with a bottle of wine, surrounded by cactus, palm trees and bright rust colored cliffs and we consider ourselves incredibly lucky to be here - what a difference a day makes.
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Remember the carnet....

We rounded last night off with a glass of wine and a pizza delivered to our door. It was ordered in a mixture of German French and Italian and was fantastic. We woke up refreshed and decided to double check our papers to find the carnet had the wrong chassis number on it! Paul at the RAC, unphased as usual simply sent a new one out to Tunis for us to collect on arrival. We set off from our Sosta for the port much relieved and promptly ended up missing our turning and heading back to Switzerland! Quite why the co pilot thought that our Sat Nav was wrong along with all the road signs remains unclear but ho hum, a 25 km detour later and we arrive at Hell on earth - Genoa port. Few signs, plenty of trucks, lots of irate Italians hooting their horns and a bemused Englishman doing a 3 point turn in the middle of it all! The check in was chaotic, it was like Primark in the sales! There was room for 200 cars but the ferry takes 1100! People and bags lay everywhere and the cars were so loaded down the tyres were almost invisible. We got our papers sorted and eventually boarded as almost the last vehicle. Our luxury suite turned out to be a double bedded cabin and hardly what you'd call luxury or suite, but never mind, back in Taffy tomorrow and that is luxury.
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Tempting fate

"This will be our last easy border crossing" Linda said 5 miles from the Swiss border. 10 minutes later we had found ourselves in a huge queue of lorries that had been stationary for 3 hours. "It could take another 4 hours" one of the drivers informed us - and we thought Ukraine was hard to get into. Plan B, go via France. We set up the navigator and 5 minutes later we ae out of Germany and in France! Another 5 minutes and we've taken a wrong turning and ended back in Switzerlands Customs lorry park! So we head off on foot smile sweetly and laugh with the French and Swiss Douane and have got all our papers stamped, the road toll paid and are on our way again somehow missing out hours of queues. We then somehow manage to leave Switzerland go back into Germany then get back into Switzerland again. God knows how we are going to find Egypt let alone Cairo if we can't manage to get out of the EU!
3 hours later and we have arrived on the Med, and got ourselves stuck half way up a mountain pass and lost in an industrial estate before finding our overnight Sosta. So far all the road signs have been in the Latin alphabet, we've had good English maps and the aid of Sat Nav. From tommorow its all going to be in Arabic, our maps are 1 inch to 100 miles and no Sat Nav. Sounds a doddle!
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Extra time winner!

Well with less than 90 minutes to go before the banks closed on our last day at home HSBC managed to get the guarantee sorted and the papers over to the RAC by fax. The carnet will now be next day delivered to Stowmarket for us to pick up on route during our farewell tour! Talk about cutting it fine!
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Nearly Time to Set Off....

With only 5 days to go before we depart we are still waiting on HSBC to
get the Bank Guarantee in place so the RAC can issue a carnet. HSBC
having lost our file have a lot to do to get the documents faxed over to
the RAC so we can take the Carnet with us when we depart. Other wise it
will have to be couriered out to Tunis for collection at the embassy.
Still, this is only one in a long series of minor problems that we've
had to overcome to get the trip on track and I'm sure it won't be the
last...