Farewell - And Tunisia "special" once again

We are wistful. Lamenting quietly to ourselves. For the last time the beach here. For the last time the Tunisian smile. The last time this, the last time that. We fill up with petrol, not a bad idea at 70 cents a litre. We fill our cupboards with fennel, spices, fruits and kilos of oatmeal. 

And we soak up Tunisia all over again. The stroll through the market, the coffee "Türk" and the fresh juice of the oranges from Cape Bon. We smile one last time at the plush camels, none of which Gerd wants to give me, and dance to disco music at Tunisian volume (full blast!) at the kiosk at the port of Tunis.

We park wildly in the roundabout once more, meet "our" French again and inwardly say goodbye to this country that seemed so unruly to us at first and then made us fall in love. The country, the people, the nature. A country with character and warmth. With a lot of poverty in the wallet and so much more wealth in the heart. You, for us travellers, wonderful, open, free and generous Tunisia: Merci! Shukran! Thank you.

We look back, leaf through our travel diary and are grateful for the providence of fate. Every single day. 

Now it's time to board the ferry.

We know from others that this can be pure Tunisia once again. We remain relaxed and wait. Here is a short sequence of events, not meant to be taken too seriously. Because after tired comes stupid. Sorry about that.

• Check-in opens at 3pm and departure is scheduled for 11.59pm.
• We are there at 3 pm. But neither check-in nor other cars are in the harbour. Are we in the right place?
• We are approached by two "officials", they want to fill out forms for us, they also want money. The little we still have is not enough for them, they leave.
• We are waiting.
• From 5 p.m. the car park fills up, "our" French people arrive. Also a French motorcyclist. We now feel like a group.
• We wait
• 5.30 p.m. A queue forms at the counter, no sign of an open window.
• At 6 p.m. we are asked by "officials" if they could take all our things (we don't find out which ones). Then everything would go faster. We reply that we would have to wait anyway, so we could wait together in the queue.
• We women now have our papers together, it takes all of 30 seconds: Show your passports, print out your ticket, done. We run over to the men, drive off and stand in the queue to the ferry.
• "Officials come and say that we are in the wrong queue. This ferry here must lead to Rome, we have to go somewhere else. So we get out backwards again, now we are in the right queue. (Until we realise that the two queues run together like a zipper at the front). They want a bit of money for the help. They are also fiddling with forms again, which they now fill out in a highly dramatic manner.
• Once again we show our passports and vehicle documents.
• During all the action I cook dinner, so I sit in the back and really can't be bothered with the men's theatre.
• We are waiting.
• Centimetre by centimetre we roll on. Maybe two car lengths.
• Meanwhile, we wait a little.
• The customs check: we have to unpack in front of us. The whole car. Next to us everything has to be unpacked! Mentally, we also prepare ourselves for this, I start looking for a third plate, after all, we are about to eat and I would just invite the customs officer. Food is important!
• Outside, there is suddenly a flurry of activity. Unprovoked. But bustle.
• We eat separately after all, Gerd takes the passports and papers somewhere. Gets a form, fills it out, takes it away, brings the passports back. 
• Gerd eats, I wash up.
• The customs officer looks into our window from outside (he is probably afraid of having to help with the washing up, unfortunately he was too late for dinner! But he gives us back the vehicle documents and takes some other piece of paper from the entry. That was customs for us.
• It's 8 pm. And we are now full, finished paying duty and could get on the ferry.
• We are waiting.
• In front of us is a 4×4 jeep blocking our free passage. Behind us are "our" French, which is good, because they still have internet credit and we have access to their hotspot, because our Tunisian gigabytes are already empty. We text back and forth and pass the time.
• We can overtake the jeep and are now 20 metres further ahead in the queue.
• We are waiting.
• It is 9 pm and: we are waiting.
• It is 10 pm, we are 12 metres further again, we are waiting.
• It's 11 p.m. and our ferry is actually just arriving. So now it's time to unload. All of us heading for the ferry and the cars heading for Tunisia are facing each other at customs. There is pushing and shoving, we are directed back and forth so that reasonably clean queues form.
• Hectic: people are pushing, Tunisians can turn three lanes into five. Horns. Whistles. Loud shouting. And once again: unprovoked hustle and bustle. Or is it temperament?
• I lie down in bed and immediately fall asleep, Gerd can also wait alone in front.
• 23:59: The departure seems to be delayed, we are standing at the same place as 22 and 23 o'clock. In the meantime we are the second to last in the queue, "our" French are the last. How this could happen, when we were the first ones at 3 o'clock, remains a mystery to us.
• Around 2 o'clock (we are waiting, I am awake again) the queue starts to move. One or two cars are allowed on the ship, then the ramp is closed for us. Large containers are loaded onto another ship via "our" route. We wait. 2 cars - one container - 2 cars - one container. 
• We'll wait a bit.
• Now we are just fooling around, a meaningful conversation is no longer possible. It's good that we don't have to argue with customs in this state.
• A fully loaded station wagon in front of us touches down with the trailer coupling on the ship's ramp, the wheels hover in the air. Mum and grandma get out, loads of boxes and bags are unpacked, the estate car regains traction and can continue its journey. Mum and grandma have to walk. We can't laugh any more.
• 3.18 a.m.: We drive onto the ramp, we have made it. Second to last!
• One last time we show the passports, they look briefly into the side window with tired eyes and let us pass.
• 3.20 we take our bag, try our luck at booking a cabin and move into an inside cabin at 3.40. We don't know if and when we will leave. We no longer know if and when we will set off. We sleep soundly.
• 10 a.m.: Instead of a loving wake-up call, the announcement: "Our duty-free shop is now open for you!" Straight into the cabin, straight into your ear! We're not going shopping, we're wasting the last chance for a plush camel.
• 11 am, we sit comfortably on deck with an Italian espresso (Si! Si!), chat with the motorcyclist who has made a tour of Algeria (and we already have new ideas and many possibilities!) and play with Adame, the son of "our" Frenchmen in the playroom.
• We wait, binoculars in hand and hearts full of memories. The long night is forgotten.
• The coast of Sicily emerges, snow-capped mountains, green landscapes, turquoise water: Italy, here we come!

PS: I made a little video about it, which I sent live to our family and friends (boredom says hello!). And no, we're not going to start a YT channel, I like writing far too much for that.

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Merci for "travelling with us

We are thinking about taking another break from travelling in the summer and visiting our families in Germany and Switzerland. One of the ideas is to organise a Lecture about our long journey to the Persian Gulf to prepare. If you would like to, what would interest you the most? We will also tell stories here that don't find a place here on the blog. We're thinking of the Bern and Berlin area - simply because we have family there. But other places are also conceivable. Feel free to write to us.

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