Where did we leave it… Oh yes ‘Watch This!’ When we saw the 4x4 part of the tour this was more of what we expected. Jill was loving it and I think the driver was responding to the age old carnival tradition of ‘scream if you want to faster’. What we were heading for was the Star Wars film set.
We stopped at the top of a giant sand dune and took in the view. Below was a hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious. It’s ridiculous how much a bit of chicken wire and plaster of paris in the middle of the desert can excite a middle aged man. We had a bit of discussion on the way down the giant dune (which was fairly exciting on its own) about what set it was. I thought what we were going to see was Luke’s home, you know the one where his aunt and uncle got brutally murdered and his reaction was to run off with the old wiredo in the desert.
We drove down and got ready to have a look around. This particular Star Wars set was Mos Esper and was used in The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones films so I suppose I’ll have to rewatch those. It could have been worse it could have been the sequels. I’m surprised they don’t make more of it to be honest. They obviously patch it up from time to time and like most film sets it doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny. But if I was a local instead of trying to get people to ride my camel or sell some tat I’d get a couple of light sabres an hire them out for photos at 20 dinar a time, you’d make a fortune, probably twice over if you had a Jedi robe.
We had a slightly more sedate ride back to the coach. There was one more stop near the end but we were a good 200 miles away from the hotel as the crow flys. Our guide said in total It would probably be about 6 hours.
We stopped for lunch at a some random location, I can’t even tell you where we were. But it was clean and I expressed my delight that the gents toilets weren’t yet swimming in piss. Jill and Michele looked at me in surprise so I explained that in a very short period of time the floor of all male public toilets soon became drenched in piss. I also explained that my theory is that it’s fat men, because the can’t see what they doing. Old men because their hands are shaking and their aim is off. And boys because… well boys just don’t care. Just to clarify ‘boys’ can be any age.
After lunch we got back on the coach for the long slog to Kairouan which, as our guide kept telling us over and over, is the 4th holiest city in Islam. I don’t know why I think he probably told us at some point but I can’t be bothered to look it up. Anyway we were going to a shopping centre. About halfway we stopped for a comfort break in the middle of nowhere so of course the coach broke down.
I’ll be frank I didn’t hold up much hope of them being able to fix it but took comfort in the fact that at least we were at a location that had toilets and food. As I watched their efforts I discussed the situation with Donna who said she’d decided that the French were rude. I laughed as Lyn had came to the exact same conclusion and the phrase;
‘A Rude Frenchman? Well I never!’
Popped into my head and mouth. I couldn’t remember at the time where it had come from but of course The Simpsons did it.
Fortunately this was a regular coach stop and another coach from the same company happened to pull in. This meant after 45 minutes of what appeared to be men angrily shouting at each other and the coach. Arabic can sound very confrontational when spoken in a loud voice. They got it started and off we went.
Sensibly they were going to get a coach to meet us at Kairouan and change everyone over there. We arrived at the ‘shopping mall’ which was shit but at least everything had a price on it and there was no haggling. Instead of changing coaches they decided to have the second coach follow us back and by 7pm we were back at the hotel after 2 very long, but very adventurous days. I loved it… even Twat.
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