Throw back to Northern Excursion

Here are some miscellaneous pictures from our northern excursion several weeks ago.















It is becoming spring. This is somewhere along the road where we stopped to eat...















...mishweey, wonderful grilled lamb along-side freshly baked bread thrown on the grill for a bit accompanied by olive oil and slata mishweya (grilled pepper salad)















You place your order (ours was for 16 or 17 people) and you can stand and watch them carve up the entire lamb carcass in a few well-exacted strokes of a very sharp knife. Not something for the faint vegetarians or feint-of-heart meat eaters.















mmm...the end product. Greasy, smokey, and delicious.















Ghar el Melh, an absolutely spectacular coast line walk we took at the very tip of Tunisia quite close to the northern-most point of Africa. The main goal of the walk along the cliffs was to reach...




















This shrine to the patron saint of the region. There are two care-takers now, a couple, one of whom (the wife) is said to be a direct descendant. They were extremely generous and friendly and invited us in to look around, sit and rest for a while and drink, of course, a cup of mint tea with them. It is common practice to bring a small gift so we came bearing a box of sugar cubes. The woman told us, in an extremely poetic explanation about the place and the saint who never performed any miracles, by who never did a single thing of evil in his life.
















Some of the decorations and tributes inside the shrine which is also a home. This is Toney who is listening to a story attentively and cooling off from the trek there which took over an hour.




















I know this photo is over-exposed in parts, but boy does it capture the essence of this place and these people who welcomed us into their home and into their lives. Risking sounding a little hoaky, the place really did have a calm restfulness to it. It was hard to leave.















Beautiful hills of the north. This was across the road from a huge field of fava beans.
















Karen petting a five-day-old goat at a pottery workshop / home in Sejnen. Again, we were welcomed in and invited to watch an expert make a perfectly symmetrical put by hand in about two minutes. I was fascinated and fixated on her dexterity which was utterly fascinating to watch. Years of repetition.




















The "fingers" at Tabarka in the 6:00 light.
















The cork forests between Tabarka and Le Kef (near the Algerian border). A lot of honey in this region as well sold in jars along the road in tiny stands.
















An un-identified building at the ancient Roman marble quarries of Chemtou (I don't think this building dates back nearly that far). Some of the best marble in the country for many of the Roman monuments still standing came from this region.






















They had some very picturesque donkeys as well and nice views from the top of the cliff.




















The almost sleepy town of Le Kef were the tea is strong and people really want to chat you up in the street. We happened to arrive just before the beginning of a 24 hr. theater, dance, and music festival which was a lucky coincidence—I heard a fabulous Oud and Qanuun concert.















The Ottoman Kasba in Le Kef.















Top of the Kasba with a great view of the medina and newer part of town below.




















Le Kef and Djerba are historically the the two main Jewish centers in Tunisia, at least until 1967 when most Jews left the country. There is still a some-what sizable community in Djerba still, but I was told that the last Jew left Le Kef a few decades ago.




















I just love this picture and the light. There was more graffiti (some great stuff) in Le Kef than anywhere else we've been in Tunisia so far.
















Jupiter's temple at Douga, one of the best preserved Roman towns in Tunisia and in the world. The name "Douga" came from the Berber/numid word "Thouga." The town is not laid out like a typical Roman town (with the two main cross streets) because the Romans took what was left by the Indigenous people and made the most of it. Also, the topography (it's along a big a hill) really dictated how it was set up in the first place.















These were once latrines...now a good place for a sit-down.

Ok, enough procrastinating. Onward and forward to work on my project and English tutoring this afternoon. A friend and I have been teaching English at a little non-profit organization in a low-income neighborhood about 20 minutes away.