Sunday 21st April

A slack start today on our way to Matmata where we saw the troglodyte houses which are underground & are set into the side of the hills, as the winter & summer climates are quite extreme. The house we visited had 4 rooms with 2 bedrooms, a kitchen & a storeroom together with an underground cistern which collected rain water from the ground above the rooms. Many of the houses have been abandoned as people leave the Berber villages to work in the north or Tunis while some move to newer houses in the village. Once again we went to a site for a 'Star Wars' film which is a hotel, again underground where the rooms radiate around a central open atrium & here we had lunch. We climbed high into the mountains & at one stage looked down on the massive plain more than 500m below whilst shivering from a bitter wind. Descending we visited the Ksar of Medinine, an unusual medieval storage complex consisting of small barrel vaulted rooms with crazy crude staircases where people stored grain and produce effect is like an oversize wasp nest with openings at various levels. We are staying in Zarsis for the next 2 nights in a quite extraordinary hotel set in lovely grounds by the sea but the weather has turned on us & is very grey & blustery.