Cycling The Road Less Travelled

“Les autres sont des touristes, vous vous êtes des voyageurs.” (The others are tourists, you are travellers). It was nice of Abdes, a carpet salesman we met in Kairouan, to say as he pointed to the busloads of tourists entering the medina. We had just told him of our intention to cycle through Tunisia. “Très courageux” he repeated with a gleam in his eye that made me think he also dreamed of an open road and far away places. This was typical of the reaction we had gotten the past couple of days.

Kairouan, with its beautiful and vibrant medina, is very high on the list of things to see in Tunisia. We took our time, slowly exploring all the alleyways and back streets but now, two days and a million pictures later, it was time to go. We were ready to leave but before we could even got out of the medina we got caught in a huge rainstorm. We quickly sought refuge under an overhang. As we hummed and hawed and checked our watches, one of the men we were sharing our shelter with reached into his bag, brought out a bunch of grapes and gave them to us with a huge smile. We talked for awhile, the rain continued. He then invited us into his store, a tailor shop, where we could wait out the storm. Before we knew it, plates of harissa, bread and french fries were being set in front of us; we are “sportifs”, we must be hungry. We met his friend, saw pictures of their families, talked about our trip, talked about their lives. When we eventually got up to leave, they shook our hands and kissed us good-bye as you would an old friend. We were welcome to come back anytime.

The ride from Kairouan to Sousse was horrific; more rain, horrendous traffic, not particularly scenic and we got chased by dogs. I smiled the entire way. What a day!