Three Nights in Tunisia

I have long been captivated by the intensity of Dido's love for Aeneas, so to see the geographic setting of this portion of Virgil's Aeneid was a joy in itself.

Sunset. Ancient site of Carthage on the sea.

A tavern in Sidi Bou Said. Have some tea, smoke a waterpipe, converse with the friendly locals.

December 17, 2010. I arrive at Tunis International Airport, setting my feet on the ground, and smiling at the sunshine and the almost 60-degree-Fahrenheit weather. My first time on the African Continent, my first time in the Maghreb, my first time in the “Arab World.” 

About a half-hour earlier (it only takes an hour and fifteen minutes to travel from Rome to Tunis), I am eating, to be honest, the best airplane food I have ever had, on TUNISAIR. A huge tray of Mediterranean cuisine, sweet and savory.

I notice that the flight hostesses are, how should I say, quite voluptuous and tall compared to the lines one is used to seeing in Italy. They appear to be in style, as is the President’s wife, Leila Ben Ali, who fills magazine pages of some of the only reading material available onboard. “President’s wife Instructs Women on Independence, Entrepreneurialism,” etc., and “President’s Wife on Civil Liberties and Democracy.” Hmm, I think. It would seem so.  No mention of freedom of the press, of course.

Two hours earlier, I am sitting in traffic, a cold, grey day, with talk of snow. Judging by the street I am on to get to Leonardo Da Vinci airport in Fiumicino and the painfully-sharp sound of sirens, it could almost be New York.

The palatial lobby inside Carthage's The Residence Hotel. The gorgeous scent of orange blossom floating through the halls is enough to put one in a state of bliss.

The timing of it all is quite funny. The night before, I had been scanning the headlines of the world’s newspapers online. The first of the shocking WikiLeaks had been released just a few days before. The first ones I noticed regarding the fallout from the American Embassy in Tunisia – published by Spain’s El Pais - had surprised me just a little bit. 

The summary? The governing family practices crony politics, holding onto the country’s riches and stifling efforts by U.S. diplomats to hold seminars on free speech, concerts to unite the American and Tunisian cultures, to spread democracy, etc. In the car, I tell my travel companion what I read.

“Ma no, scherzi?” he says in Italian. “Are you joking? Tunisia is like the Switzerland of the Maghreb. The Tunisians are in good shape, they have the best economy in the Arab world, the closest thing the Middle East has to a democracy, and the Tunisian women have the most rights compared to…” Basically, the Tunisians have no reason to complain. I had my doubts, and in fact, what he said would only be partly true.

Tunisia would turn out to be gorgeous - and its people, seriously kind, open, and down to earth - but not without its  share of intrigue.

Evergreen meets palms. In December, a tiny metallic Christmas tree greets guests at The Residence, accompanied by two narrow date palms.

After touching down, we make our way by car to The Residence, passing through a rather suburban neighborhood of homes in a style I have not quite seen before. Yes, Tunisia is where part of the very first Star Wars film was made, so here a portion of the architecture resemble the structures – though much more gentrified and in near-perfect harmony with the terrain – that audiences will remember from Tatooine (an actual Tunisian city), for example.

The Residence is a luxurious 4 or 5 star resort sitting on the sea and on the edges of Carthage; it holds a Darphin spa inside, complete with pool in an uber-large atrium, thalassotherapy and other treatments. Yet, that interested me much less than another aspect here: the utter satisfaction of the not-too-faint, not-too-overpowering perfume of Orange Blossom that graced my olfactory senses and relaxed me as I walked throughout the entire ground floor of the hotel. 

THIS is heaven, I thought. THIS is the quintessential perfume of the southern Mediterranean, of the Maghreb, of the Middle East. I mentioned it before – I have never been to this part of the world, but that odor, for some reason, was exactly what I expected; it triggered memories of the feelings and sensations I held of a place I had never visited but that I had long felt and associated with it.

A French-influenced dessert at Carthage's The Residence.

At lunch, I ate dishes I had never before encountered, all equally delicious and mostly fish-based. My main course consisted of a typical Tunisia dish, the brik, egg (or in my case, fish) deep-fried in pastry similar to phyllo dough; its shape is akin to the samosa, but larger and flatter. I was encouraged to eat dessert (that is, I was reprimanded for initially having decided not to do so). Tunisia was once under French control, so its desserts still fall under the colonizers’ influence, and incorporate those of my favorite Mediterranean and Middle Eastern ingredients that are also native to the blessed Tunisian soil – especially almond, rosewater, and pistachio. 

This time, however, I chose three delicate Madeleines with an elegant scoop of apricot sorbet. Supreme. Divine. Superb. Then I asked for the noir, but was urged to take the vert. I dutifully changed my order and after the first sip, I understood why. Perhaps it is an exaggeration, but if I could, I would spend part of every year in this place just for its mind-bogglingly perfect mint green tea.

If I could, I would spend a good part of my year in this place strictly for its mind-bogglingly perfect mint green tea.

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In the evening, our guide, Abed, took us first to the site of the ancient remains of Carthage, then to Sidi Bou Said, where more enchanting surprises were in store. First of all, I was a Latin geek in high school, and I loved the mythological and tragic love story between Aeneas and Dido, Queen of Carthage. Like any good Roman (Aeneas was a progenitor of the Romans) Aeneas loved and then left Dido, for Italy (I am merely joking, of course). Dido, rather, in her distraught, passionate love for Aeneas, ascended her own funeral pyre and thus to her death. She could not live without him. But she did make sure to set a curse upon him, guaranteeing no peace between Carthage and these Trojans,  who were soon to become the rulers of the Mediterranean, and of the new Western World they would create.

I have always been fascinated by the intensity of this love affair, but not only; I think to some extent it was Dido herself who was so captivating. She was a woman heading up an important civilization (way before Cleopatra) and for some reason, in my head she always resembled my She-ra doll from when I was young: a diva with a cape, exotic headdress, and the dress - well, I am absolutely certain that part of Sicilian designer Fausto Puglisi's inspiration derives from my imaginary Dido's dress. 

I digress... To see this mythical geographical setting for Virgil’s tales of the Punic portion of Aeneas’s journey was a joy in itself. When you arrive in central Carthage, you will see a few scattered columns and a small museum, in addition to the Cathedral of St. Vincent de Paul.

When I visited the museum, I was also lucky enough to happen upon an absolute marvel: the Byrsa man (reconstructed perfectly from a recovered 6^th Century BC skeleton), glistening as if he had just finished a brisk walk under the hot afternoon sun. He was the only display in the room and, when I walked in, I thought for a few seconds that he was a person, in costume. I halted. Every detail was shockingly-realistic, from his flesh and uncannily lifelike eyes to the hairs on his toes. Excepting his distinct and regal nose, this ancient Punic/Phoenician 20-something man reminded me a bit of my brother.

The ancient (young) man of Byrsa.

After spending a few moments with Mr. Byrsa 600 B.C., I stepped outside to bask in the rays of the flaming, gorgeous sunset that lit up the horizon. As I stepped amidst the few dispersed, ancient columns of Carthage, the muezzin of evening prayer trilled through the air.  The atmosphere was blissfully peaceful.

Then, “Let’s go to Sidi Bou Said,” said Abed.

Sidi Bou Said was so cool. I am sure it still is. A delicious little seaport on an incline, with chic bars scattered over this old city’s terraces, it boasts evocative Moorish architecture and what seemed to be a young, happy and free-spirited population. It must mirror countless other seaside towns all over the Mediterranean. Abed took us into his favorite bar in the neighborhood, and I realized why he was in such a hurry to move on to Sidi Bou Said: while he happily puffed away on his nargila I checked out the bar’s little kitchen, where the cooks were heating up flatbreads and preparing tea. The locals pressed me to take pictures of them and their bar. I did so to their delight, then looked over at Abed who was still enjoying his habit. He smiled at me so contentedly I couldn’t help feeling content myself.

The moon over Sidi Bou Said.

For dinner, we wound up at perhaps the hottest dinner club in the suburbs between Tunis and Carthage. The name of the place escapes me now, but the crowd was a hodge-podge of glamorously-dressed twenty-somethings – most likely the sons and daughters of powerful Tunisian families and Arab dignitaries – in addition to a group of well-off sub-Saharan Africans (in their black, leather jackets, they were somehow smart-looking and flashy at the same time), a couple of Tunisian businessmen who had studied abroad in Texas if memory serves, and a Tunisian woman versed on the country’s gender history and women’s issues and rights.

And it’s true: Tunisia has been the most forward-moving of the Arab countries in regard to women’s rights, beginning in the 1950s when it was still a French colony. These are satisfying facts and they made themselves evident in the array of professional women I encountered over the rest of the weekend. Yet, despite this, I still had the fleeting feeling that something was amiss, that this was all a precariously-positioned house of cards about to fall down. Was this because I had had a hint from Wikileaks? Could have been. Would I have been aware of it had I not read the latest releases? Probably not, but I might have at least had a sense of the sort of flimsy, nebulous veneer layered over this terrain. 

But a thin, gelatinous film, it was incapable of glossing over for long certain of the socio-economic discontents - discontents that would be exploited to the advantage of the political opposition. It would have continued to suffice without the revelations that took place that late autumn – seeing that it did not, a power vacuum has been its cost.

To be continued...