Day 118 - Tunisia

Point of departure: Medinine

Point of arrival : Tunis

Accommodation: Phebus Hotel, La Marsa

Km travelled today: 534 km Cum: 21 457km(gravel 0km cum 4 649km)

Countries so far: 11/16

Where to next? Palermo, Sicily

Total number of photos taken: 49 (cum 5 449)

En route to Tunis, we made a small detour to Matmata, named after a Berber tribe. The Berbers are not Arabs, and are a nomadic North African tribe.This sunbaked town in the mountains of South East Tunisia is famous for its troglodyte homes.Here craters dug into the ground provide a type of shelter - these "homes" consist of a courtyard, 5 to 10 metres deep from which a labyrinth of small rooms for sleeping, grain storage and family gatherings are cut into the soft rock and interconnected by narrow passageways - to escape the intense daytime heat. Access is through a sloping tunnel or by a ladder which could be removed in time of danger. The interiors are whitewashed and quite cool in summer, where outside temperatures average temperature is 45 degrees but inside it averages anything between 17 to 25 degrees. Our guide said that quite a few Berbers now have "modern" above the ground homes which they use in the winter months and then in the summer move into their troglodyte homes.Of the 700 homes, only 300 are now in use, the rest having been abandoned.

If the landscape looks strangely familiar, It's no surprise - Matmata was the setting for George Luca's first "Star Wars" film. An underground hotel (a large home into a hotel in the 1960's), Hotel Sidi Driss was used as Luke Skywalker's home. The far west Jundland Wastes of Tunisia was where Ben Kenobi first found Luke after the attack of the sand people. The vast desert south west of Tunisia, Lars Homestead where Luke watched the setting of the twin suns.

Parts of the Star Wars' props were still in evidence and the hotel promotes the memorabilia and photographs of the film.

Then onto Tunis, quite a long drive but, on good roads and uneventful. Although Tunis is a large modern city with freeways, wide boulevards, modern buildings etc (in addition to the historic old town - the Medina) we found our way through to the hotel at La Marsa, about 20km north of Tunis.