Desert Here, Desert There, and so on

The morning felt nearly as cold as the night had at our campsite, but at least in the sun we could see. What we did not see, however, were the oasis nor the dunes which we later discovered were adjacent to the campsite. We learned this by reading a guidebook, and thus began many more hours of discord between the driver and us passengers. Why didn't he tell us that there were interesting things to do nearby? It's a mystery I imagine I will never understand. Nor do I understand why, we had paid for what we understood to be an all-inclusive tour, the driver presented us with three options which each came with an additional cost. We were invited to a camel to the top of some dunes to watch the sunset, have a tour of some (more) Star Wars sites, and best of all we were encouraged pay for a dinner-show: snake charmers and men dancing with scorpions! It was very difficult to come to consensus, primarily because we passengers didn’t understand why we were offered these options at all and therefore had great difficulty in judging their worth.

Once again, on the second morning we were scolded for starting late – although we had been instructed to be ready at 7 am, we got into the car around 7.15, whereupon the driver brought us five minutes from the campsite and stopped to lecture for what felt like half an hour about camel penises.

Yes, camel penises. Apparently they point in a direction opposite that of the sexual members enjoyed by other male mammals. I am not sure why the driver decided that this was important information, important enough to keep us in one place when we were already (according to his schedule) behind. Once we had been duly informed, we continued toward Tozeur. Along the way, we stopped by a palmarium (where date palms are grown and harvested).

Many of the dates in the palmarium were covered by bags to protect them from the rain. One of my companions proved to have an excellent eye for ripe fruit as she selected and plucked tasty morsels for all to taste. We went unmolested despite the fact that several men were busy at work in that same garden.

Frustration with our driver grew as he continued to dominate the timekeeping of our trip with his own peculiar sensibility. He felt insulted, it seemed, that we found the information in the guidebook more valuable and reliable than that which he provided us (and this despite the fact that his information was obviously unreliable and often bizarre), and he was obviously annoyed when we asked him to stop various times for pictures. We ignored this, however, and sauntered off into the desert several times. The first time was to explore a grassy area wherein we festooned ourselves with plant life.

Later, we stopped the driver again so that we could leap about in the bed of the great salt lake. There are many art-looking objects on display there, including a broken boat which was highly entertaining to those with pirate fantasies. The ground is littered with salt, as might be expected, and piles of the stuff washed up alongside the small amounts of water still flushing through the lake bed.

By the time we had reached Tozeur, we decided that we did not, in fact, want to partake of any of the options presented us by the driver. In fact, we were greatly looking forward to some time without his grumpy countenance peeking at us through the rear-view window. For this reason, we rented quads, which are like motorbikes but with four wheels. . . which I suppose makes them not much like motorbikes at all. So outfitted we followed our local guide on a two-hour tour of the desert during which we visited a lake, an oasis, a Bedouin home and a hot spring. The guide gave us a half-hour extra on our tour without complaint, laughed and joked around with us. Obviously, we adored him and promised to bring all our friends to his shop so as to further trample the environment and to once again don rental helmets.

While we took in the lake we met two local gentleman who had taken their horse-drawn carriage into the desert to hunt. After some pressing they agreed to show us their kill – tiny desert rats, all with their heads severed by the air gun. Perhaps killing such creatures requires impressive shooting, but it doesn’t sound that tasty to me.

The tour ended with a lovely sunset and nary a camel in sight, thank goodness. If there ever were an animal more evil than the fiendish goat, it is the camel. Wait until you have encountered one at 4 am on a narrow mountain pass. You will never consider that particular beast of burden to be innocent and complacent again!