By Graham Howe
from UpFront magazine
June 2006 Issue

We can’t wait to set off on a long cross-country trip over Tunisia. “What time tomorrow?” I ask our guide. “Oh, about 800 BC,” replies Ahmed Fezai, talking about Carthage, the first call on our classical itinerary. “Boy, that’s an early start,” I quip.

I idly study the classical image of Hannibal, the first hero of Tunisia, on a five dinar banknote. We are travelling back in time to the Africa of antiquity. For a thousand years, Carthage was one of the great cities of the ancient world. The metropolis of the Med was the stronghold of Hannibal, the legendary military leader who led an army of men and elephants across the Alps and brought the Roman Empire to its knees.

Dido, a modern pop icon, is playing on radio Tunis on the short trip to the coast. Now that’s what you call synchronicity. Her namesake, Queen Elissa Dido (meaning ‘the wanderer’) fled King Pygmalion in Lebanon and founded the great Phoenician city of Carthage. Coming to Carthage triggers long-forgotten memories of the tragic romance of Dido and Aeneas, Virgil’s version of Romeo and Juliet which ends in the suicide of the lovelorn Queen of Carthage.

What’s left of antiquity? Ravaged by time, Carthage, a Unesco World Heritage site, lies in ruins today. The marble rubble on Byrsa Hill overlooks the quiet harbour which sheltered the Phoenician fleet during the long Punic wars. A falcon shackled to the remains of a Roman column poses sadly with the tourists for a few dinars.

If you studied Latin at school, you might recall the epic rise and fall of Carthage. We were following in the footsteps of Major Grenville Temple, a scholar who wrote in 1832, ‘I walked to the site of great Carthage, the mistress of powerful and brave armies, of numerous fleets and of the world’s commerce – to whom Africa, Spain, Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily and Italy bowed in submission as to their sovereign.’

Standing on the summit under the cypress trees, our guide spins a wonderful tale. When the inhabitants said Dido could take as much land as could be covered with an ox-hide, the wily queen cut the hide into long, thin strips and wrapped them all the way round the hill of Byrsa (meaning ox-hide, though historians say it derives from bosra, the Phoenician word for fortress). Fact or fiction, we are spellbound by the myths of Dido who ruled the world as Queen of Carthage long before the Queen of Pop.

A seaside suburb of Tunis today, Carthage is littered with modern villas and classical ruins. The sculpture of a boozy Silenus stands among the many marble statues and mosaics in the modern Carthage museum. We walk among the postcard-sellers in the abandoned amphitheatre where 40 000 spectators watched gladiators in mortal combat with wild beasts. (I wonder if they could stage re-enactments with the occasional busload of tourists?) We are impressed by the colossal Antonine Baths, the third largest in the Roman Empire, watered by the 132-kilometre-long Zaghouan aqueduct.

The most evocative ruin of all is the Sanctuary of Tophet. In the 1920s, French archaeologists found over 20 000 urns with the ashes of children at the macabre sacrificial site. Meaning ‘place of burning’ in Hebrew, the sanctuary is mentioned in the Bible where Jeremiah records, ‘people have built the altar called Tophet…and there they burn to death their little sons and daughters.' A giant marble slab at the Bardo Museum in Tunis – which houses one of the finest collections of Roman mosaics in the world - shows a priest carrying a child to sacrifice to appease the Gods.

Leaving the chilling grove, we relax at dusk at Sidi Bou Said. The idyllic cliff-top village named after a Sufi saint is an artist’s haven – frequented over the years by Paul Klee, August Macke and Andre Gide. An exquisite study in blue and white, the Andalusian architecture of decorated doors, curved grills, wrought-iron balconies, pink bougainvillea, and courtyards, is a timeless Mediterranean scene. We manage to lose the jostling tourist crowds over a glass of sweet mint tea and a bowl of olives at a café with whitewashed terraces that seem to fall into the Gulf of Tunis far below.

Heading south, the landscape slowly changes from the green foothills of the Atlas Mountains to the sandy coastal plains on the fringe of the Sahara. Serried rows of olive trees with gnarled old boles march like Roman legions across the vast countryside. At the side of the road, bloody sheep’s carcasses swing in the breeze at rows of simple roadside cafés (called meshoui) with smoky barbecues that sell grilled lamb kebabs to hungry travellers. “You can see the meat is very fresh,” says our guide – but it’s all a little too gory, so we make for a restaurant touristique.

Towering over the tiny village of El-Jem, the incredible colosseum of the ancient city of Thysdrus appears like a mirage in the hot dusty plains. Coming across this imposing structure in the middle of nowhere, the sheer scale of the three-tier colosseum takes your breath away. Wealthy olive farmers who built it in the third century AD once entertained the masses with chariot races, gladiators and lions. They say that the African pro-consul Gordian, the self-styled emperor of Rome, committed suicide in the colosseum after the failure of his local rebellion against Rome.

I am travelling in my grandparent’s wake. Forty years ago I received a postcard from Tunisia from my grandmother. She wrote, ‘Lovely, sunny beaches. Fascinating casbah.’ She is long gone, but I treasure my collection of her postcards from abroad.

The hilltop kasbah at Sousse is our next stop on Tunisia’s classical coast. Hannibal, Pompey, Scipio Africanus, Julius Caesar, and Maximus fought over the strategic capital of the Sahel, the fabled granary of Rome. Sousse at dawn or dusk is a magical silhouette of mosques, minarets and souks. We scramble up the spiral staircase to the top of the old stone watch-tower which offers a spectacular view of the World Heritage site. All the stray cats of Sousse somehow remind us of Dr Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat.

The caliphs built a holy chain of ribats (fortified garrisons) from Alexandria to Sousse to Tangiers, to defend the Maghreb against the Crusaders. Fans of Monty Python might recognize the magnificent ribat at the nearby seaside resort of Monastir. Climbing the labyrinthine staircases on the massive ochre walls, we look down on the courtyard where Biggus Dickus addressed a cast of thousands of Tunisians. Many scenes from The Life of Brian were filmed in this dramatic setting reminiscent of Jerusalem – as well as Zeffirelli’s The Life of Christ and Jesus of Nazareth.

We are delighted to discover that a visit to Monastir is said to be the first step on the road to paradise. Perhaps our journey was only just beginning. Sixty kilometres inland, we stop at Kairouan, a crossroads for travellers over the centuries. One of the seven holy cities of Islam, it is renowned for its magnificent medina and carpet souk. Attired like pilgrims in white robes, we explored the oldest mosque in Africa with its three-tier minaret, colonnade of 414 marble pillars from Carthage, and huge studded doorways to a prayer-hall with one of the oldest pulpits in the world.

We were getting closer to the Libyan border. Hawkers at roadside stalls waved at us, selling plastic cans of cheap petrol smuggled in from Tunisia’s oil-rich neighbour. Others sold sweet palm juice from the palmeraie – the massive oases of palm groves that go on forever. You’ll still find a few of the old funduqs – the great courtyard inns where pilgrims and traders rested on Africa’s gold, slave and spice route. At the oasis town of Gabes, the hub of the henna trade, we stop at the spice souk at this ancient crossroads for camel caravanserais. Merchants were selling mounds of black and red henna, saffron, cloves, cumin and coriander, mint, pepper and origanum.

Gabes is renowned for the quality of its henna – and for its touristy straw hats and bags. Stallholders accost me, laughing, “Hey Ali Baba, where you from?” (By now I was getting used to the funny Tunisian greeting to any big man with a beard.) “South Africa – Madiba’s country,” I reply. “Bafana, Bafana,” chant the soccer-mad locals who still mourn the day South Africa beat Tunisia in the Africa Cup.

When I photograph Mubarek Mahmoud, a farmer hawking camel and goat skins from his old scooter, he’s so delighted he gives us a sheepskin – “a present for your wife.” When I offer him a cigar in return, he checks out the real Havana and says, “Like Fidel in Cuba.” I haven’t the heart to tell him Castro put out his last stogey years ago. Moving on, we head for Jerba, the legendary island of the lotus-eaters and sirens.

The author’s itinerary was arranged by Cecelia Amory, a specialist tour operator for North Africa and the Middle East, based in Johannesburg. Tel: (011) 678-6165, email: cecelia@championtours.co.za.