They’re doing some reconstruction and stabilization work on the capitol.
Libyo-Punic funerary inscription.
The base of a Dolem, a funerary monument, from Byzantine time.
Human bones on display.
Our “Guide” and Xiyun. This guy latched onto us for a while. We paid him to go away.
We made our exit from the site in the early afternoon somewhere around 3 or so. We started walking down through Tunisian pastoral toward Dougga Nouvelle, about 3 kilometers away from the archeological site of Dougga. We had gotten about a kilometer down the road when four Tunisians passed us going up the hill in an old beat-up station wagon. They came back down a few minutes later, one person less. They offered to give us a ride to Dougga Nouvelle. We hopped in, me being in the middle to firewall Xiyun from the sketchy Tunisian guys. It was a fast ride down to the louage station in Dougga Nouvelle which consists of a bus stop cover and a patch of dirt next to the main road.
I asked around a bit and found out that we just had to wait next to the side of the road trying to flag down vehicles until one stopped that would take us on. We had several abortive attempts including us running after one louage that stopped then took off again. It was rather stupid that the guy would stop but decided not to let us in. Probably he decided that Xiyun was acting a little too spaztastic to be taken into his fine Maciejne. Finally, the Tunis to Le Kef bus came by, we hopped on it, and for about four dinars we made it to Le Kef. We decided to skip Bulla Regia as it was getting late and we were cold, wet, and tired.
On the bus ride Xiyun started getting carsick. She fell asleep to counter the effects. I joined her in dreamtime for about an hour as we plied the tarmac out to the east. In Le Kef we walked up the hill to the same hotel that I had stayed in the last time next to Place le Independence. We got a rate of 35 dinars which included breakfast. It wasn’t quite as good as what we had gotten before but the season is starting to pick up a bit and we weren’t in much of a position to negotiate. The rest of the hotels in town are either more expensive or don’t have any heat. It was getting very cold outside so we decided that it was best for us to get a warm room while we could.
We settled into our room, put on more warm clothes, and headed out to find some food. We ended up eating in the same restaurant that I had eaten in the last time. The little girl came over and took our order in French. I’m sure her mom, the proprietor, doesn’t speak any French. We had spaghetti, chicken, and some salad mischuia. It was all very yummy and warming. After that, we went down toward the Monoprix to try and buy some of the mud shampoo for Xiyun to try. Unfortunately, the Monoprix was already closed. On the way back up we bought four oranges and a couple of cups of Flan.
Back in our warm hotel room, we dug into the Flan cups for desert. They certainly weren’t of the quality of Mr. Flan, but they were still pretty good. We read our guidebooks about what we were going to do the next day, and got ready for bed.