Day 117 - Tunisia

Point of departure: Tripoli, Libya

Point of arrival : Medinine

Accommodation: El Kssour Hotel (**)

Km travelled today:300kmCum: 20 923km(gravel 0kmcum 4 649km)

Countries so far: 11/16

Where to next? Tunis

After Sabratha we headed out towards the Tunisian border post, where we were sure it would be totally plain sailing. Not so! The problem was that Marina was switching passports here, having travelled on her South African up to and including Libya. John travelled on his South African up to Egypt and then into Libya on his British. (The Libyan agency had recommended this arrangement as the Colonel was refusing visas to Shengen European countries). As we entered Tunisia, the Customs stamped Marina's Portuguese passport for the Beast (as its in her name) but Immigration were not happy that it did not have an entry and exit stamp from Libya (which was on her South African). They insisted that she used her South African passport where a visa was now necessary. It took them about 30 minutes to work out how this impasse would be solved, and in the end a visa was supplied fairly quickly into the South African passport. And all this was done in Marina's schoolgirl French and body language. John was quite impressed!

Apart from this, Carnet was not necessary and all the usual additional charges were nonexistent.

Then onto Medinine, a further 105km from the border and our first night stop in Tunisia. A fairly easy drive and we found the hotel without too much trouble. The road signs in Arabic and French certainly made life easier than was the case in Libya, Sudan and to a degree Egypt.

After supper at a fairly crummy dive across the road from the hotel (after Wadi Halfa in the Sudan most places are acceptable) we had a fairly early night. At the hotel we met Valerie & Barry Roth-Bousquet (French & Dutch respectively) who are stuck in Medinine waiting to cross into Libya. Their Libyan guide told them their visas were refused and it looks like they may have to travel via Turkey and Jordan, which means crossing back into Europe. A really lovely couple whom we hope to keep in touch during our respective trips. Their website www.africaminded.com