Tunisia # 8 A trip to a desert oasis (Chebika part 2)

Chebika is a small mountain oasis town surrounded by a dry and arid desert region, just north of the salt lakes or Chotts. It is said to the least famous of these oasis towns yet it's quite spectacular with its rugged rocks and steep-sided ravines. Having driven through houses we arrived below....

After walking through 'the obligatory shopping area' the visitor begins to get a view of the area.

There are two routes to reach the base of the ravine, the most difficult being up the terraces between the rock and then down, the easy route is a winding path down. Guess which route I took!!

The more difficult route (actually it wasn't too bad and you could climb at your own pace) gave some great views. Below parts of the ruined village.

Looking across to the mountains.

The Holyman's retreat.

Looking back...

Hmm will I squeeze through that gap and I wonder what's on the other side...

Looking down into the ravine, it is actually a deeper drop than it looks in this picture.

A closer look at the mountains.

At the bottom of the steep climb down (there were some steps).

This is where you find a pool of water.

In the mud at the edge of the pool were hundreds (well maybe dozens) of these little fellows.

Looking back up from where we came (what can you see carved in the rocks??). For some reason I didn't take a close up, silly me!

We followed the stream, and yes it was narrow in places and you had to negotiate stepping stones, but I managed it without getting my feet wet.

We passed a very pretty little waterfall.

Then it was back to where we started.

Archives:
2008: Meme-6 things about moi and awards
2007: Fungi Forage
2006: Echo Lake

Tunisia # 6 Tozeur an oasis

Tozeur is an oasis town on the edge of the Sahara, we only spent a couple of nights here, we arrived late afternoon and this is my first view of the pool at our hotel. I managed to fit in a swim the following afternoon. In fact one of the things that we found frustrating was there was never enough time to use all the facilities in the hotel, because of the planned visits.

Our first morning was spent taking a carriage ride into the oasis. It was interesting to see dates, bananas and pomegranates growing, but it was pretty obvious this was another money making venture for the locals. It was very small scale compared to the hugely productive business where most of countryside is covered in olive and palm trees. We drove for hours and that was all you could see on either side of the road.

The young lad gave a demonstration of how they climbed the trees bared footed.

The bananas grown here are much smaller than the ones from other parts of the world and they are not as sweet.

We did get pomegranate in the hotels.

I have never really been fond of dates but these small fresh dates are so delicious I was eating a few every day and I brought some home. We were told that in the fridge they would last until Christmas but I don't somehow think ours will be around that long. In fact there are only a few left!

Archives:
2008: Ben's Tune
2007: New Awards for Moi
2006: Window Repairs