Itchy feet!

No, nothing to do with the footwear I purchased in my last instalment. More to do with the fact that my Peruvian adventure seemed unbearably far away…

And when life feels quite uninteresting, when you’re hit by a case of the ‘stuck in England’ blues, when you’re supposed to be saving money for a ‘big’ adventure – but then an email bursting with last-minute deals slides into your inbox, there’s only one thing to do: tell yourself that you deserve it / life is short / you HAVE been working incredibly hard lately, blah blah blah – grab your credit card and take the plunge!

Besides, if all those facets come together it’s practically a sign, isn’t it? Well, if you want it to be one, that is…

So that’s how I found myself flying out to Port El Kantaoui, Tunisia with my boyfriend for a supposedly conventional, relaxing holiday. (With Peruvian adventures not really being his cup of tea, it’d also be a chance for us to do something together, I reasoned. See? No shortage of excuses!)

“Uh…do you two not want to see the beach or the pool?” joked the travel company rep when we handed her our excursion booking form. “No one signs up for that much in a week!”
“We don’t do things by halves!” I jovially retorted, disguising the fact that I was secretly wondering whether we’d been overly optimistic and a tad rash in deciding to tour most of the country in six days. Particularly when it transpired that almost every morning would entail a 5am start (the exception being a 4am one…)

The coach journeys this involved were almost interminable. But let’s make one thing clear: interminable doesn’t necessarily mean boring. Particularly when said journeys bore a greater resemblance to magical mystery tours than fully-explained ferrying from known points A to B.  For we hadn’t reckoned on having Tunisia’s answer to Borat as our guide…

Trips tended to follow a pattern. The first half hour of a journey – the bit when everyone’s eyes are still open and most tour guides are waxing lyrical about the cultural and historical delights in store - was generally spent in an unorthodox silence. Oh well, we thought, maybe that’s the way it’s done in Tunisia.

Miles of arid countryside would fly by, the early morning sun beating through the coach windows; you’d snuggle into your seat and slip some shades on. Eyelids would seemingly bear the weight of the world as the proverbial Land of Nod beckoned irresistibly...

And that was precisely the point at which Borat Mk II would launch into his commentary. His monotone commentary. In Arabic. And German. Then Dutch. And French. It would probably have required consumption of a gallon of Red Bull and a pile of Pro-Plus to remain conscious by this point. By the time he got round to English (a term used loosely!) those Brits still in the land of the living wore frowns, questioning eyebrows or merely stared at him blankly.

The coach pulled up at a kerb. The Arabs, Germans, Dutch and French grabbed their belongings, descended the coach steps and bounded out into the bright Tunisian sunshine. We Brits observed the goings-on, picked up our bags, gathered in a group on the pavement and tried to piece together the random words of English we’d been able to understand.

We were in a village. That much was clear.

“Uhm, so what are we doing now?” I asked Borat, trying to catch up with him.
“Thees is village” he replied. “Sidi-“ (I didn’t catch the rest). “Coach leave three-fifteen.”
Well that cleared that up…
He directed us up a hill, then disappeared in the opposite direction.

Oh yes, this supposedly conventional, relaxing holiday was quickly becoming quite an adventure…