April 27: Tunis, Tunisia --- our first steps into Africa!

Seeing our bottle of water with Arabic writing was pretty cool!

The tour we did was through Disney (I totally DID NOT want to brave it on my own in a Muslim country. I may be pretty brave and adventurous in foreign places, but not that brave.......) Our stops were Carthage (a world heritage site), M'dina (a shopping market), the Bardo Museum, and the town of Sidi Bou Said. I picked the longest tour so that we could see all we could in this new country and continent. It was a long day, but we had a very interesting time....it will make DS17and I some great memories. : |

Visiting Carthage

An overlook of the city near the Carthage ruins

I just had to take this picture to prove I was there in Tunis too! (Carthage ruins and overlook of the city in the background.)

Their markets and souvenirs were very fascinating to me! I loved the mosiac plaques (pictures above), and ended up buying one of a camel, but did it later on our last stop of our tour.

Bardo Musem entrance

The Bardo museum is known for its ancient mosiacs. They were very impressive!

The Bardo museum was ok, but after seeing the Vatican museum, the Louvre, and other exceptional museums in the world, this one did not quite interest me much.....It was nice, but I would have shortened the time here to spend more time elsewhere, like in Carthage or Sidi Bou Said....seemed like we were always hurrying on this day.

Walking to Mdina marketplace...the following few pictures shows the very interesting views along the way.

The back of DS17 as our group entered the marketplace....this place was pretty overwhelming. I probably would have been more nervous and scared if I hadn't experienced marketplaces in China first. These were nothing compared to them!...but close....  : |

We went to a Berber rug presentation that our guide said we could opt to go to with him, but it was just a glorified sales pitch. We thought it would be more about how the rugs were made, and they did have a lady on display making a berber rug, but alot of people were pressured to buy, but no one did. The prices were WAY too high, don't know who they think they are fooling. They even started pressuring DS and he is just a kid! They seemed way too desperate to me..... I did buy some jeweled boxes for all the kids and myself and had to really haggle to get them down, but I still am pretty sure I paid WAY too high for them still...oh well. I am still so happy I got them.

The rug lady

Next, onto the town of Sidi Bou Said and their famous blue doors. I thought this town was very pretty, albeit a little too rushed.

The port area we were docked in was very nice and Arabic themed

Walking back to the ship that was held just for our tour to get back. It was a very fun day!

Most people did not like this port stop of Tunis, but I found it very interesting and was happy to be visiting a new continent. So while people were complaining alot, I was just grateful because who knows when I will be in Africa next if at all??