Wednesday, July 11, 2007

do you know the way to ksar ghilane...

we're off to ksar ghilane, an oasis in the middle of the sahara desert.

everyone in tunisia told us not to do this in a car that wasn't 4x4.

but we're not afraid of anything.

this is where we made a left turn.
we thought this sign was funny, because who knows what "crue" means? still not sure, but i think it means "sand," and that would be an appropriate warning.

this is the unbelievably desolate highway that one takes to get to the sahara desert. we started freaking out about 50 km into the drive b/c we hadn't seen a car or any structures of any kind since turning onto this highway.

one of the odder signs that we saw on the drive.

and then we crest a hill and, bam! huge camel in the middle of the road. he would NOT move.



an ugly spindly thing with patches of hair and ribs everywhere. We just waited him out.

he finally wandered off the road, and we drove on.


more camels. at least here they have something to chew on.

we passed this one little structure--a cafe of sorts. we decided that it would be best to tell them that we were going into the desert, in case they had to organize a search party for us later.


dianna drinking a fanta in front of a rug-covered wall.


tell people that you're a journalist, and suddenly all those sullen, glaring Arab men become animated chatterboxes. dianna is speaking a melange of french, italian, arabic and jibberish here, and these dudes are eating it up.

just keep smiling and recording...


this guy was named mohammed. we met lots of mohammeds.


1 comment:

chuck said...

We almost ran over a camel in Egypt, and the good news is that they will get out of the way if properly motivated. Motivation here translates into a Land Cruiser with brakes locked up trying to go from 60 mph to 0 -- the camel jumped about six feet straight up and about ten feet to the left and off the road (with it's front legs tied together). They are impressive, despite smelling terrible.
Looks like a fun time.