We’ve not been ‘feeling’ this holiday. Normally we’re looking at things to do, changing up holiday money (this always gets the holiday juices flowing) maybe buying new clothes but we’ve not done any of that. I also do a lot of research about where we’re going, interesting things like what is the countries main exports, but I’d not even bothered to do that… alright Tunisias main export is textiles and leather products.
So feeling rather ambivalent we had lunch with the children (it was the boys birthday) and headed out to a Travelodge on Cribbs Causeway. We’ve not stayed in a Travelodge for years after a bad experience near the Seven Bridge but with a 6am flight and in keeping with doing this holiday cheaply, the £35 for the night was hard to argue with. In fact it was alright so I might have to adjust my view a bit.
Security and boarding was fairly painless in fact I didn’t set off any scanners or get an extra pat down which bizarrely put me a little on edge. What did get us more in the holiday mood was being sat at the boarding gate watching all the people fail the Easy Jet cabin bag size test. Their attempts at desperately trying to empty the bag or just use physical force to ram it into the metal box, and then failing miserably and having to pay £49 cheered me up no end. Before you judge me let those who haven’t laughed at a video of other people’s misfortune cast the first stone. This just happened to be live.
Our seats on the plane were probably the best you could hope for with standard seats as we didn’t have to share the row with a stranger. They were still cramped and uncomfortable but again in keeping with trying to keep the price low I hadn’t upgraded. Something I’ve not done since our first retired adventure 6 years ago. In fact here’s a handy tip never upgrade and then you’ll just be happy you’re going on holiday. This fits in nicely with the philosophy that the key to happiness is the reduction of desire or to put it another way, don’t want anything. I like this idea, I’m just shit at it.
The transfer was a long one but unlike the coach in Jamaica it was actually roadworthy. The advantage of having such an early flight was that despite a long transfer it was almost like having an extra day. The hotel was nice, especially as you walk in but when you start to look a bit closer it’s not a 5 star hotel. I imagine it definitely was prior to covid. However the staff are friendly the service is good and it’s reasonably clean so I’m not complaining. Especially given what we paid.
Despite saying we weren’t going to do anything except sit a read books the first thing we did was book a 2 day excursion to the Sahara Desert for the following day. We’d seen this before we left but Lyn wasn’t that keen as the YouTube video I saw had the people staying over night in a tent (which would have been cool) but the rep said you stayed in a 4 star hotel so Lyn said yes. As it happens I reckon tents would have been better but more of that later. This was £111pp and included transport, overnight in aforementioned hotel, tour guide, admissions and all food but not drinks. Bargain!
After lunch we were finally allowed into our room. You can’t get Tunisian dinar outside of the country but we thought we’d just be able to get some at the hotel… nope. While you could exchange sterling or euros at the hotel you can’t do it by card. We were directed to the nearest cash till which was at a nearby airport about 1km away so we walked it. Theres an unfinished feel about Tunisia. I noticed it on the coach transfer I did see that there was a train station nearby so we’ll definitely have a go on that later in the week, ‘toot toot’.
It was an early start for the desert the next day and we’d been up since 3 so after dinner which was nice enough we got straight to bed ready for a 5am alarm call the next morning.
P.S. I thought I’d better explain the title for this holiday ‘Tunisia, The Punic Tours.’ You may or may not of heard of the Punic Wars which was a series of wars between ancient Rome and Carthage from 264BCE to 146BCE. If you’ve never heard of Carthage then you might of heard of Hannibal and his elephants crossing the Alps? If not then I give up. Anyway ancient Carthage was in Tunisia. I thought I was being clever with the title until I said it to Lyn, hence this explanation 😁
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