TWO DAYS IN TUNISIA

So I caught the ferry to Tunis, me and the Tunisians and the assorted adventurer with his commando-girl love interest. Anybody who thinks that Muslims are a bunch of brown-skinned losers would love this ferry (that’s not my opinion btw). I guess long-distance ferries are the Mediterranean equivalent of Greyhound buses in the US. By contrast long-distance buses in Europe are mostly the exclusive province of backpackers, since most people travel by train, and buses in fact hardly exist in some countries. Watching cars board the ferry was like watching East Germans crossing the border into the West for the first time, almost twenty years ago, their Ladas loaded with their scarce possessions, ready to ditch it all for a new life in the western lands, urban legends sight unseen. Of course in this case the Fiats are loaded with air conditioners and refrigerators and all the other technological artifacts de rigeur up north but hard to find in the Sahara. Foot passengers are a bit more limited, but tend to carry at least their weight in luggage, and more than a few blankets. That’s what I wish I had, because a cold front is moving with us to the south. I hope we can outrun it. Then there are the ubiquitous Chinese businessmen scouring the globe for opportunities. They’re everywhere now.

Ferries don’t seem to run on time so I had visions of the ‘boat from Hell’ as we finally departed from Rome’s port of Civitavecchia. It was a long cold night in steerage; apparently they reserve their best heaters for the cabins. The Tunisians didn’t mind of course with their blankets and their fava farts. They took the cushions off the seats and put them on the floor then slept with their shoes off like nothing was more normal in the world, while I huddled in my single jacket trying to conserve body heat by exhaling with my mouth and re-inhaling with my nose (I’m joking). We made a stop in Trapani before crossing the strait to Arab country, but nobody got off; we’d already passed through Immigration in Rome. We must have made up some time somewhere because we pulled into Tunis right on time, twenty-one hours after leaving Rome. So did the cold front. It’s raining and chilly in the night air. I zip right to the front of the Immigration line and breeze on through. There’s no regulation of taxis there so you’re at the mercy of their basic instincts, though I suppose it could have been worse, e.g. Tangier, or Buenos Aires, or countless other places that fleece helpless tourists right off the boat or at least look the other way.

At least my hotel in Tunis has got heat, a fact that’s not lost on me as I consider my onward options. I sleep on it. They’ve also got my passport. I’ve never seen that done except in communist countries. Apparently that’s to ensure payment… so I pay up. Duh… why didn’t you just say so? The next day is still grayish and cold, so I need to chart my stars immediately so as to avoid last minute stress and confusion. There IS no ferry to Malta any more, dag nabbit! I knew it! Now I’m really wishing I’d booked a return ferry segment back to Sicily, especially since it was the same price as the OW, a fact I found out only after booking the OW (or ALMOST at least; I refused to re-check for fear of kicking my head senseless, knowing that if it were only 2-3€ more I’d still have passed, and justifiably so, cheap-ass that I am)! Now I’m stuck! When I’m stuck I start looking for an exit, NOW. There’s a flight to Malta for $180 OW. That’s not a RyanAir price, but not THAT bad really, twice a week, next one Sunday, same day my hotel’s booked up to. I fuss and fume and walk the streets looking for inspiration… i.e. looking for Internet.

I’m cold, I’m stuck, and I’ve got no wi-fi, at least not at a reasonable price. To use a computer in my hotel room would cost the equivalent of certain sex acts in certain sectors (of the world, pervo, not your body), so I forego.

Many things are cheaper on the street than they are in your room of course, so that’s where I look for connections, all to no avail. If you think you’re going to cruise the Maghreb with your laptop, blogging up in your hotel and café hotspots, think again. They’re way behind. There are hardly any Internet cafes at all for that matter, though I finally found one, that’s only one, apparently a government-controlled ‘Publinet’, though at reasonable price. That doesn’t mean the next town down the road will be any better. I had really thought I might hang in Tunisia a while to practice my French, but the unavoidable conclusion to my dilemma is staring me right in the face with that silly stupid grin. I book the flight. I ran the scenario through my head a dozen different ways and it worked out the same- when stuck with your luck, tell it to go f***… I’d already tried to book a flight in the US in fact but it didn’t go through at a cheaper price. I’d even considered looking for an agent to book it for me, for a fee… I think that’s what I just did, same flight and all… yep, just like I planned, harrumph…

This trip doesn’t need to get stalled so early, so I’m good. I’m on a quest for 192 countries after all, and there’s another kink waiting right down the line at Malta. It’s an island, remember? That’s kinky by definition, and a flight from there to Athens is definitely ‘iffy’, though RyanAir had one to Brindisi, Italy, almost FREE… if I’m an EU citizen. Huh? From there’s a ferry to Greece, fairly frequent I think, at least better than Tunis. If I had to go back through Sicily to catch a boat to Malta, though, then go back overland AGAIN, I’d be really tempted to blow it off, and I don’t want to do that, or maybe I just don’t want to admit I made a mistake not booking the return ticket originally, which I only know because my brain is so full of sub-conscious feedback that I only research all my options AFTER I’ve made my decision, consciouness being the wretched curse that it is. The trip is back on course anyway, ahead of schedule actually, so maybe Istanbul’s back in the pic, or maybe farther south even, where it’s warmer. Bottom line is that Malta’s a world heritage site, and apparently cheap, so that’s good enough right there. LP’s website says Malta’s the old world, so don’t expect to book your room online, then the next page has more cheap hotels on offer than any country I’ve ever seen. Does one brain hemisphere communicate with the other at Lonely Planet? I know the feeling.

So I guess two short days will have to suffice for my Tunisian experience. Is that enough to ‘get it’? Yes… and no. I’ve eaten couscous with the Homies and gotten lost in the souk. Half the fun of coming to an Arab country is getting lost in the souk and seeing where it spits you out. It’s also half the frustration, the crush and crunch of bodies slipping and sliding against each other in some caricature of a pedestrian walkway. Don’t go if you’re claustrophobic. How anyone could actually shop in such conditions is beyond me. Of course there’s no shortage of plasticrap in the old medina along with the good traditional stuff that successful tourism brings. Am I regretful that the trip is getting cut short? For some reason, no, not really. I like kicking back, but I need good prices, good weather… and readily accessible Internet, preferably wi-fi. This is my life after all, not my vacation. One out of three isn’t good enough, though another season may present itself sometime. Food is certainly cheap enough, prices that almost make you cry, and it tastes good too, similar to that of Morocco. Espresso’s about 400 TND, about a $.25 George W (no, not THAT ‘W’). Those cheap hotels probably don’t have heat though, so that won’t work right now. What other down sides are there to Tunisia? Creeps follow me around, especially at night, up to no good I assume, though I try to avoid those conclusions. You’ve been here and never noticed that? If they’re good, you don’t. I don’t like it regardless. Bottom line- when in doubt, bail out. Malta sounds interesting enough in itself, firmly straddling Arabia and Europe like no other. Stay tuned. I can’t wait. I’ve already got a list of questions.

Will Malta be a dog country or a cat country? All across the Arab countries cats rule, taking over entire sections of cities with impunity, apparently a right they’ve earned since the era of the Sphinx. Of course this is only possible if dogs are controlled. Cats won’t get far in South America. All animals are controlled in modern countries of course. The irony is that the Arab countries are so male-dominated, and to me cats are analogous to femininity, and dogs masculine by analogy. Arab countries reek of testosterone, from the scads of males hanging out in cafes all day to the erect chiseled minarets that serve as symbols of Islam, a far cry from the fleshy rounded lobes that serve as the domes of Christianity, the final cross little more than a cherried nipple on top. In this view the entire Crusades would be little more the the banshee hysterics of a woman scorned, determined to get her room with a view down on the Mediterranean coast back. Or are the feminine cats psychological sex surrogates for the macho Muslims, and the masculine dogs likewise for the feminine Christians? I won’t go there.

Myself I can go both ways, dogs or cats that is, with equal affection. The Muslims DO seem to prefer their women, uh… plain. But all that testosterone is dangerous. If bottled up and concentrated and focused on a single objective, who knows what could happen? It could be the strongest weapon ever known. Worlds might change, wars might be fought, planes might crash into buildings, and men might kill themselves, willing to sacrifice all in a blaze of glory for the sake of faceless Gods and fuzzy futures… hey, wait a minute… Or are Arab cultures really the feminine ones, merely adopting masculine affectations as needed, and vice versa for the Christian cultures? The dialectic could get confusing with no clear answer, since religions frequently seem to dictate to a people what they need, not necessarily reflect what they are…

What were the other highlights of Tunisia? Well, they seem to have outdone the Italians’ combination toilet/bidets. Flexible hoses in Tunis bathrooms with a business end that looks similar to that of a Preparation H dispenser obviously have no other utilitarian purpose. But blood oranges are the big discovery. I don’t know if I’ll ever eat another orange that isn’t red, they’re that much better, sweet as a beet and almost as red on the inside. Try one; ask for ‘sanguinello’ if nothing else works. Somebody in Florida is missing the boat with this. What else? They have thirty dinar (from ‘denarius’, just like denaro and dinero) notes, and their change is divided into a thousand millimes instead of a hundred cents. I’ve got a nice big room and I’ve even got central heat. But I ain’t got Internet, and Tunisia is just not really working for me for some reason. Maybe it’s the weather, or maybe just the large ratio of tourists to locals, always a recipe for dissatisfaction for me. That’s the good part about the slow season, but maybe it’s not good enough. Next stop is Malta. Stay tuned.

SATORI IN PARAMARIBO- part 2, the Stranger's Nausea

So I blew off French Guyane all together, given the fact that it’s not a real country anyway- merely an overseas department of France- complete with French prices. Add to that the fact that every mile traveled out means another mile I must travel back- the motto after all IS ‘backpack, don’t backtrack’- since interior roads are few and far between in this undeveloped wilderness. So I decided I’d maybe just go to the border and make an unofficial crossing, withdraw enough Euros from the French ATM’s at a savings good enough to pay for the trip- I need Euros for Cuba- then come back. But that’s still extra miles and Lonely Planet says the best thing to do in the border town of Albina is leave, which is very uncharacteristic of the usually overly optimistic crew there. So when the US dollar suddenly gained against the Euro and I realized that I could withdraw fairly large amounts of local currency from the Paramaribo ATM’s and buy enough Euros right there in the local cambios, then why make a butt-busting trip just to save a few bucks and cover my future Kountry Kount in the unlikely event that Guyane Francaise might one day secede from the union? France is not likely to give up the Ariane launchpad at Kourou any time soon I don’t reckon, and more important than a slight exchange advantage is the fact that my E-trade bank- since it has no ATM’s of its own- charges you no service charge when you use those of others, even when they’re halfway around the world. Yes! You heard it here first. Don’t abuse it.

Actually if you have a multiple-entry Brazilian visa and don’t mind some travel uncertainties, you can now loop through the Guyanas overland without backtracking (too bad you don’t get five-year Brazil visas- like Suriname- along with your ‘reciprocity charge’). For now there’s a bridge from northeast Brazil into Guyane Francaise and after the overland route through Suriname you can exit (British) Guyana overland back into Brazil at Lethem going to Boa Vista on the road from Manaus. From there you could even enter Venezuela- impossible directly from Guyana itself- and continue on through the Venezuelan Amazon, maybe even finding the legendary waters which link the Orinoco with the Amazon River. Imagine the travel opportunities there for someone with a canoe and no life. Otherwise you’d have a long loop through Colombia or even further down the line to re-enter the Amazon and Brazil. Such are the things backpackers daydream of, not seeing every sight listed on the tourist brochures. For the traveler with more time than budget, the broad sweeps are more important than instant thrills and a list of ‘sights’. Traveling becomes a Zen-like experience full of the ‘suchness’ against which life occurs, an end in itself, rather than a thing to be consumed, digested, and… filed away.

While many backpackers may find their little epiphanies in encounters with other like-minded travelers, that’s not the only emotional sustenance available. While encounters with the local population may by definition be short, especially where language is an issue, that doesn’t mean they have to be shallow. We all speak the universal language of smiles after all, and that can go a long way sometimes. Even in large Muslim populations we’re all people of the Book, remember, and even with Hindus and Buddhists we’re all people of religion, even the so-called ‘atheists’ among us. Like a vaccination spreading in the surrounding population whether you actually got the jab, we’re all Christians whether baptized or not. If Jerry Garcia said nothing else prophetic (he didn’t write the lyrics remember), at least he said that. Still the market ladies probably felt a sigh of relief when I finally bought something this morning, proof that I wasn’t just up to no good, stalking them or something. Like the difference between wolves in the wild and dogs that have been tamed, we’ve all been transformed by the power of love, likely to trust a stranger in our midst until given a reason not to. It not only works emotionally, but it’s good for business, and crucial to an expanding universe. A universe reduced to contracting will eventually crash in upon itself.

Personally I like playing (carefully) with the dogs I find enroute, many of them homeless and living off market scraps. It’s not exactly ‘Dancing with Wolves’ or ‘Dog Whisperer”, but certainly better than ‘Sleeping with Dogs’, an unpublished screenplay I have yet to write. We’re a crucial part of their evolution. They need us. So I’m stuck in Nieuw Nickerie waiting for the ferry. Fortunately I allowed an extra day of snafu time so I should be okay. If I hadn’t stayed an extra day to change one last batch of SRD into Euros I might be there already, but that would mean three nights in Georgetown, hardly a thrill, and almost certainly costlier than where I am now. A hundred here and a hundred there can add up quickly, especially in a region that’s not especially cheap to begin with. All’s well that ends well, so I’m optimistic that there’ll be a ferry tomorrow as promised. If not, I’m royally f%$#@d, and hundreds of dollars of travel plans are at risk. I’m not surprised, having been stuck on the other side for three days- but that was Xmas and Boxing Day- still I might’ve planned differently had I even THOUGHT the ferry might take the day off. I persevere; it’s a Zen thing remember and this is a sesshin. The Chinese will build a bridge soon; mark my word.

Nieuw Nickerie is a nice enough place, but there’s not a lot to do here, just wander the market and nibble the local snacks and play with the dogs. The crappers here are the same as in Indonesia, presumably Dutch, but a strange design. They don’t drain from the rear, which seems logical, nor continually downward, but from the front with a shelf-like platform level for most of the area not so far under you. This means that as you take a crap the fruit of your labors is continually piling up under you, and when you finally flush, the water must actually lift the entire mess up and move it forward enough to plop it down the hole. Does that sound complicated enough? It’ll definitely leave enough of a smear to give my wife a hissie fit also. Maybe Europeans are stool watchers; I don’t know. If that’s the case, then Dutch toilets are just the thing for you. As you inspect the details of your internal life and digestion process you can even hum along the lyrics to the old 60’s dittie ‘I’m a Stool Watcher’ (“here comes one now, da dah da dah”). Anyone need a life besides me?

Then the bad news comes. The boat isn’t going tomorrow, and the next day… well, who knows? How can you really predict these things? I’m pissed, and I’m not even British… or drunk. Turns out the boat isn’t even the problem; it’s the road, a twenty-five mile stretch of pea gravel and sweat, a monument to uncertain ambitions and inherent reticence, as a bastard country enters the modern world walking backwards. How can a country be so lame and inefficient and incompetent that they can’t even keep a 40km. stretch of road- one of the country’s only two overland links to the outside world mind you- open and navigable? I could take one of the small boats that shuttle locals back and forth illegally, but there’s no guarantee I could get stamped into Guyana. The nice ladies at the Guyanese consulate suggest I get Suriname immigration to stamp me out and have them contact Guyana about stamping me in. I get a sick feeling like when a condom broke and shriveled up into a rubber band much faster than its over-zealous sponsor. It’s time to scramble, so I contact a travel agent and plan a tentative escape route. The best laid plans gang aft agley… sounds Dutch.

So that’s what I do, drop back and punt, changing travel plans as fast as I can. Fortunately the Christmas season is over or I’d be screwed. As it is I get my life back for under $300, so it could be worse. I go back to Paramaribo to catch a flight out, wanting nothing so much as to just leave, and never come back. I’ve seen some sloppy operations in my life but this is a cake-taker to be sure. To make it worse the mini-van driver has 80’s pop-schlock greatest hits playing at a full gigabel all the way back, over and over, grinning like some mongrel cretin from an Asian prison camp, eating noodles while barreling down the road at 130 clicks, dodging potholes the whole way. It figures, after watching the Indonesian crap MVDO’s that filter over here to nourish the Javanese diaspora. It’s not as bad as the bus driver in Tierra del Fuego a couple months ago, though. I swear he played some song by Marco Antonio Solis approximately twenty-seven times in succession until I almost memorized the words, though I still don’t know the title, something about ‘Poema de Amor’.

So I wake up in the middle of the night to go to piss and go to the airport, alternately angry and glad, check in and pass la migra like ringin’ a bell, then settle in here to check my e-mail. Then in a little while the damndest thing happens. The plane takes off a half hour early! And I thought I’d seen everything. So it’s not that the people are slow or uncaring; they’re just imprecise! Now I get it. I feel better.