Date of entry: 20 October 2009 (Day 7) Place of Entry: Tunis
Date of Exit: 27 October 2009 (Day 14) Place of Exit: Ras Adjir, Eastern border
Tazour Oasis, 25 October 2009 (Day 12)
I rose 2 hours before sunrise.
Fortuitously it was a beautiful desert evening. The stars were like sparkling diamonds suspended in vast quantities across an empty void. Restlessly, I stepped out into the void and walked carelessly. I could feel the vastness of the open desert and the pure freedom.
After an hour of walking, silhouettes of lonely palm trees and shrubs started to appear, as day approached. Dogs barked in the distance. I decided it was time to head back to camp and turned my GPS on.Unknowingly, I had been walking in a circles and was a stone’s throw away from our camping spot on the edge of the date palm oasis.
I ventured into the maze of palms. The abundance of sugar-filled dates was remarkable and I strolled from one low hanging branch to another, feeling like a combination of a hunter gatherer and the sweet-toothed boy from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. With a satisfied grin on my face I walked back to our camping spot to start the day, my pockets bursting with dates and clutching several pomegranates that I had also found growing.
Leaving the palm oasis we came across vast salt pans – dry, white oceans extending as far as the eye can see. We stopped to walk out and explore; the salt crunching under our feet and the cuts on them stinging in the small streams. It was at this moment that I received a call from nature.
I had risen early that morning from the unease of sluggish bowels, compliments of the sudden change to a travelling lifestyle. Assisted by my scoffing of dates, my stomach kicked into action and I was unable to call nature back later. I cleaned in the salt stream and was left with a bottom as sterile as when you are whipped with alcohol before blood is drawn.
With the sun, sand, salt and sugar of Tunisia behind us, we drove on towards Libya.
