We talked with several louage drives trying to figure out which louage we needed before finally finding one that would take us to Tajerouine where we’d get another louage to Kalaat Khasba where we could get another louage to Hadria, our real destination. First we rode in a standard red louage to Tajerouine. It was uneventful. Then in Tajerouine, it took us a bit of work to find a blue louage to take us out to Kalaat Khasba. We finally did, and after about 30 minutes of waiting, took off to there. I had never ridden a blue louage before this. It was a very interesting experience. People got in and out on this guy’s route as we went past their destinations. We were let out at the crossroads just outside of Kalatt Khasba and told to wait there for a yellow louage that would take us to Hadria.
At this point some guy came over to us who spoke some bad French and said he had been to France once, and started trying to convince us to go to a cafe with him for some coffee. We politely declined and finally were successful in flagging down a yellow louage. We jumped in, being the only two passengers on board, and began talking with the driver about how much it’d be. The dude that tried to get us to go to coffee suggested in Arabic to the driver that we should pay five dinars. I hadn’t tipped my hand yet that I understand and speak some Arabic. At this point I broke out into a long series of exchanges with the driver and the other guy. Finally I got him to take us out there for two dinars. The guy didn’t look to happy because he just had lost his commission and the driver told him to stop hassling tourists. The driver seemed to be pleased that I spoke some Arabic and stood up for the right price.
We got dropped off at the ruins of Hadria, just outside the town of Hadria which is little more than a border post on the Algerian frontier. There were some guys standing around which we took no notice of, knowing that they’d want to guide us for a fee. I knew the site was free so we ignored them and ran off into the ruins to the nearest baths complex. We proceeded down to a vandal church where a guy in a Burnous came up to us on a moped and asked who we were, where we were from, where we were going, and what we were doing. He said he was from the National Guard. After we told him, he took off into town on his little put-put bike. We continued wandering around the site, this time heading northward toward some more churches built by the Byzantines. At this point, a National Guard 4×4 pulled up. Pretty soon, a guy in a very official uniform walked over to where we were, asked to see our passports, and told us to have a nice day. He went back to the 4×4, got in with two other guys, and sat there to watch our progress. As we were very close to the frontier and in an area where just a few years before foreigners were being abducted and killed at an alarming rate, the National Guard wasn’t messing around.
Next stop, Algeria!
Part of the forum and capitol.
Baths complex.
Fallen arches.
Byzantine Era Church. The site is littered with them.
Another church.
Column girl.
The theater. Note the similar construction to the one at Bulla Regia.
Triumphal Arch on the road to Carthage. Notice the stones enclosing it. This was used as part of the defenses for the town during Byzantine times. The Byzantines constructing a fort around the arch is the reason it’s so well preserved.
The statues are missing. No doubt work of the Vandals.
Orange time!
Yet another church.
A Numidian mortuary. Notice the square shape and portico. This one is amazingly well intact except for the hole blown in the base by treasure hunters.
Oued to Algeria. It’s been raining a lot in Tunisia lately and the Oued showed it.
Part of the ruins are being eaten by the Oued. The Romans had built an incredible retaining wall system to keep this from happening but no maintenance for 1500 years and look what happens!
The Byzantine Fort. It’s the largest one in Byzantine Africa. There are something like nine watch towers and at least three churches contained inside.
The end of a large water channeling system that covered over a smaller Oued and allowed the Romans to build on top of it. This is also the bridge for the road from Carthage to Algeria.
A rare octagonal column.
There used to be a bridge here spanning the Oued and heading south to another Roman town. Now some blocks remain in the Oued and the original road can be seen on the other side of the bank. The modern road is built on top of the original Road.
The modern road has to ford the Oued. The Roman road had a bridge. I think the Roman road was better.
An uneven doorway. It’s Byzantine era at the bottom of a watchtower built in the middle of the fort and at the end of a church. It’s the only example that I’ve ever seen of a door that was blatantly un-rectangular. Anyone have any ideas as to why?
Another church.
Bones and garbage in a sarcophagus.
The Roman road to Algeria.
What appears to be the Byzantine equivalent of the funerary containers at Utica where baby remains were housed. These funerary boxes appear to be late Byzantine era. I’d hazard a guess that they were for all ages, not just children.
This piece of marble came from very far away. Probably Greece or maybe even further east.
Rubble piles from where the walls fell.
We finally finished up the site, being very wet, cold, and tired, and headed back up to the main road. The National Guard saw that we were done, started up their 4×4 and started driving back into town. We flagged them down and asked where the louage station was in town. They laughed and told us to climb in. We crammed into the back seat with one of the guys and got a ride for a few kilometers into town with the National Guard of Tunisia. They had big assault rifles in the luggage space in the rear of the vehicle just in case they had to do battle with insurgents unexpectedly.
They helped us find a louage that would take us to the town of Thala where we could get another louage to Kasserine and finally a louage all the way back to Tunis. I think we were the first tourists that they had seen in quite a while at the site. They seemed rather perplexed by our presence but happy nonetheless to have something to do for a change. One of the guards even spoke pretty good English. He was probably originally from Hammamet and now was stationed on the Algerian frontier in this godforsaken border post. What a job!
The louage filled up fairly quickly and we took off to Thala.
The Roman ruins in Thala. The entire town lies on top of ruins. The main square is the only portion of town that has been excavated. I wonder what lies beneath the rest of the town?
We asked around a bit in Thala and finally found a Louage to Kasserine. Unfortunately, there was only one seat open. There was some hmming and hawing and then it was decided that we should go in the next louage out of Thala. There was a drunk guy that spoke English that was kind of wandering around and begging for money for more alcohol. He hassled us a bit at first when we tried to get into the first louage. We got into the second louage and sat there, shivering. Pretty soon, this drunk guy comes over and gets in next to us and starts talking to us in slurred French, Arabic, and English. He was rather drunk and his breath smelled rather bad. Pretty soon he pulled out a bottle of what he was drinking to show us. In French it said “Burning Alcohol”. I believe that’s the same as Rubbing Alcohol in English which I am fairly certain is poisonous. Well I suppose he didn’t have much else better to do with his life.
Finally, the louage driver came back over, shooed him away, and moved the louage to a better position. At about this time, it started snowing. At first there were flakes mixed in with the rain, but before too long it was a major blizzard. Here comes the drunken guy again. This time he almost had no English left and his French was barely understandable. Another guy got in the louage up front and told him to go away. Finally, yet another guy, this one maybe about 23, came and kicked him out and sat down next to us. He sat there for a bit until the drunken guy wandered off then got out to buy a few things. I hopped out to get a picture of the snow. What a shot! Louages, roman ruins, a Tunisian town, Tunisians standing around with snow accumulating on their bernooses, and snow falling from the sky! Who would believe it!
Yes, that’s right! It’s SNOWING!
The louage filled up and we were underway. Xiyun bummed a cigarette from the guy sitting next to me and we chatted him up. He was a solider in the National Guard stationed in Sbeitla. He lives in Thala though and commutes in once a week to the base and the barracks there. He seemed like a nice fellow but was a real chain smoker. As we climbed up higher and higher to go over the pass to Kasserine, the snow started accumulating on the sides of the road. It looked like there were a couple of inches at the top. Just over the other side, it stopped snowing, warmed up, and cleared up. It wasn’t warm by any means but at least it was a little better. This was a blue louage and as it was a blue louage, we stopped many times to let people on and off. It was amazing seeing where these people were getting out. There was literally nothing around except for a small red brick hut maybe two kilometers from the road and a guy would get out in a business suit and start walking across the fields toward it!
The oddest thing by far we saw though was the crosswalks. There was nothing around for a good five kilometers. Suddenly, there’d be a freshly painted crosswalk in the middle of the road. Obviously the highway maintenance crew had extra paint and nothing to do for a few days. We looked around to see if maybe there was a foot path crossing the road there but there was absolutely nothing for kilometers.
We finally pulled into Kasserine around 4pm. There were two little girls wandering around begging for money. Some people were giving them money while others were telling them to go away. When they came over and tried to use their sorry eyes on us I told them forcefully to go away. It was obvious that they were well fed and taken care of and only put on the rags and got dirt on their faces to go beg. I bet that their mother or father was sitting in the cafe watching them while sipping on a warm drink. Those two girls were making good money too! I watched them make about two dinars in a mater of three minutes outside of the louage that we found to Tunis.
Finally, our louage filled up and we pulled out of Kasserine. We had thought about going to Sbeitla to check out the ruins there but decided not to because it was getting late and we were hungry. Also, transport was quickly drying up and we didn’t want to get stranded somewhere. We were sitting in the way-back and what a comfortable way-back it was. On the way out of Kasserine, we were pulled over by the police for an inspection of the luggage space to make sure no one was hiding back there. After a thorough inspection, we were allowed on our way.
About a 1/3 of the way back, we stopped off at a roadside stand selling all forms of food. The driver got out and got something akin to a hot pocket. Xiyun and I bought a half dinar of Makaroth which ended up being about a kilo worth. The guy didn’t bother measuring it out too carefully. He just sort of scooped and dumped it into a bag for us. We feasted on them, being very hungry, before we took off once again toward Tunis. Xiyun nearly went crazy on the ride back. It took us about four hours total to pull into the southern louage station after a long and treacherous ride through the dark.
It was about 830 when we pulled into the station. We walked out, went down to the big road nearby, grabbed a cab and made our way to Avenue Bourguiba and the Restaurant Sfax where we had some Couscous, salad mischuea, and some spaghetti. I couldn’t eat very much for some reason. Probably because I hadn’t eaten much for the past 24 hours and my stomach had shru nk. Instead, Xiyun ate most of it.
We got to Xiyun’s place at about 930pm. I grabbed my laptop and external hard drive which I had left at her place on Saturday, said goodbye, and headed home. It had been a good trip. We ended up spending right on 150 dinars for two people for two days. Considering everything we saw, we did pretty well!