rkrabbendam@yahoo.com

Hope to hear from you.
Cheers, Roel

written by  roel krabbendam on December 29, 2006 from Gabes, Tunisia
from the travel blog: Harmattan
Send a Compliment

---

5 comments...

25 Dinar buys a room without heat in a hotel under renovation, but hot water runs from 8pm to midnight. It's enough, and a hot bath and dinner downstairs of couscous and chicken and bread (baskets of bread!) and pastry and cafe au lait make it perfect.

Here's the view out of my window in the morning. Unheated room = lot's of condensation.

Early morning without heat in the room, Bi'r Ali Bin Khalifah

Pink bathroom at Hotel Oasis

By the way, that spoon I lost...it came back. Now I have two. It was hiding under the fold of one of my outer pockets, and it wasn't until I unpacked absolutely everything last night in trying to find my knife, that I found the spoon. The knife (with attached bike lock key and handy LED light) is definitely history. Two theories: this guy I met two nights ago stole it, or I accidently threw it away with a bag of Orange peels and empty yoghurt containers. Full story:

After leaving Kairouan (and NOT staying in the 5 star hotel that beckoned so...so...seductively), I bicycled another 25km into the middle of farm country. Mud absolutely everywhere. I was about to plant my tent on a concrete cistern to get out of the mud when a 15 year old kid bicycles by and suggests I follow him. I do. For half an hour. It gets dark. Suddenly he says goodbye, and leaves me standing there wondering what that was all about. 20 minutes later I find a house that looks like its under construction, and plant the tent on a concrete pad. Dogs begin to howl, and they don't stop for an hour. Ensconced in the tent, I implant some earplugs and hope for the best. Half hour later, flashlights and muttering outside the tent. I ignore it and they go away. 15 minutes after that, more flashlights and muttering, and this time I'm rousted by the owner of the house and his ne'er-do-well brother. They suggest I make myself at home inside the house where it will be warmer. Up comes the tent and everything in it, to be placed in the house.

I'm left there with the brother: he can't stay in Tunisia, he wants to travel and work abroad but can't get a visa, and can I help him find work in the United States or Europe? He hasn't been to school, he drives a truck occasionally but doesn't have a job, he speaks some rudimentary French, but he has no skills whatsoever. He doesn't want to work on the family farm. He's evasive about his name and address, but gives me his telephone number, and promises to see me in the morning. Next morning he's a no-show. I leave the house, the door locks after me, I realize I don't have my knife. I force the latch on the door (15 minutes with a stiff piece of cardboard: I was desperate), search the house, and don't find a thing.

When you're carrying as little as I am and everything has been considered for weight and size and utility and cost and secondary uses, losing any one item takes on an inordinate importance (I've been planning this for over a year!). I was really, really depressed for kilometers. I started using the back of my spoon as a knife (spoons: they're the new knife!), and got through the day, and finally came back to my senses: I can get another knife. Furthermore, I have a spare light and a spare bike lock key and this isn't the catastrophe it felt like in the heat of the moment. XZ$%&@! happens. C'est la vie.

Dental floss: that problem I thought I solved by buying toothpicks? It wasn't working, I'm having some swelling in the gums, and finally ask an Australian studying Arabic here in Tunisia if she could give me some floss. She hands me a whole roll. Ca, c'est aussi la vie.

written by  roel krabbendam on December 27, 2006 from Gabes, Tunisia
from the travel blog: Harmattan
Send a Compliment

---

3 comments...

48: Africa
47: Car accident...mid-life crisis
46: A million trips to Middlebury, Vermont
45: New job: working with Middlebury College in Vermont
44: No more school construction funding in Massachusetts...job crisis
43: Project manager for Acton schools: Mia's school, the school I went to
42: Starting work on the Acton schools: second most rewarding career experience
41: Trading self-employment for a day job
40: Designing Franklin's Hawaiian pad: still not done
39: Designing Franklin's Hawaiian pad: most rewarding career experience
38: Boston, Massachusetts: a million trips to Washington DC for work
37: Los Angeles, California: bad move professionally. Mia arrives!!!
36: Marriage (I finally say yes).
35: Cambridge, Massachusetts: working with Polly. Designing Franklin's first house.
34: Las Vegas, Nevada: working on Treasure Island Casino. Polly says "yes"!
33: Los Angeles: Architectural degree at last.
32: Ticino, Switzerland and Rotterdam, the Netherlands: thesis.
31: Los Angeles, California: school. Dad dies.
30: Divorce. Only 30 kilometers to go!!
29: Boston, Massachusetts: Condominium renovation horror. Quit school.
28: Night school, day job, condominium renovation: what was I thinking?
27: Somerville, Massachusetts: starting school again
26: Raleigh, North Carolina: designing water filtration plants and branch banks.
25: Marriage. A year in the Amazon basin.
24: Raleigh, North Carolina: my first job.
23: Quiting school to be with Laurie.
22: Cornell Architecture. Working as a cafe manager (much better!)
21: Cornell Architecture. Working as a janitor and then a dishwasher in a restaurant.
20: A year on my bicycle in Europe and Morrocco.
19: Flunking out of Cornell Engineering.
18: Cornell College of Engineering.
17: High School graduation.
16: Driver's licence (fender bender in Registry of Motor Vehicles parking lot: good start)
15: Tennis camp.
14: Being a teenager is miserable!
13: Being a teenager is great!
12: Summer in Austria with Niekje.
11: Junior High misery.
10: Graduating elementary school: a major triumph.
9: Less than 10 kilometers left: I'm going to make it!
8: Forcing everyone to stop calling me "Roll" and start calling me "Rule".
7: The pinnacle of my academic career. Unfortunately, I peaked early.
6: Moving to Acton, Massachusetts. I remember the smell of school paste.
5: Moving to Hoffman Estates, Illinois. Making maps with my gang from the hood.
4. Moving back to Holland. Awe at the maps and globes in the 5th grade classroom.
3. Moving to Wildwood, Illinois.
2. Falling down the stairs. Lighting matches with Niekje...lots of matches.
1. Come on: does anyone remember 1?
0. I've made it. My back is killing me!

written by  roel krabbendam on December 27, 2006 from Bi'r 'Ali Bin Khalifah, Tunisia
from the travel blog: Harmattan
Send a Compliment

---

5 comments...

Mohamed el Amied Ben Hedili Ben Mohamed Ben Romd’hane, storekeeper

"Une cuiller seulement"?
"Oui, une".

He quickly had one of the 2 guys working for him find an old spoon. While they were cleaning it and I was wondering what an old spoon would cost me, he invited me to eat with him. Though I told him I must go, he quickly set up two packing crates inside his store, brought out dates, olives, olive oil, chili paste, milk and water, and told me to have a seat. I did as I was told.

Mohamed el Amied Ben Hedili Ben Mohamed Ben Romd’hane, storekeeper

About the milk: apparently fresh from the cow. I admit to some reticence. Lots of solid material that tasted kind of cheesy, with a slightly sour tinge and just a hint of the flavor you expect from the pasteurized, homogenized stuff. I was assured it was vital to keep me strong on my trip, and finally dug in for a couple of cups full.

Center for Disease Control advisory on traveller's health: "Avoid dairy products, unless you know they have been pasteurized".

Mohamed proved to be open-minded, but suggesting strongly that I read the Quran so that I might afterwards allow myself a choice. It definitely made me regret not bringing an English version along on this trip, if only to set the context. As far as Mohamed is concerned, there is no book with as many good answers to life’s important questions. I thought: why not?

Western culture fears Moslem culture, let’s face it. Facing the strange, the unknown, the “Other” requires a certain sense of security and trust, which seems to be diminishing despite everyone’s best efforts. The Netherlands just banned the burkha, for example, a move that frankly reminded me of the old dress code we had in Junior High. No jeans children!!

It wasn’t the jeans but what they represented, and so it is with the burkha. Holland is impoverishing its own culture, and nullifying one of it’s most generous and well-known tenants: tolerance.

Back to Mohamed: we ate and chatted as he and his employees dealt with a jostle of customers, and when it was time for me to go, he handed me 2 plastic bags filled with groceries and took not a single Dinar. I said “Mohamed, il y a une difference entre l'amitie et l’argent. Laisse-moi payer pour ces choses”. He told me “Une autre temps, peut-etre”. I bicycled away and found a scooter at my elbow not 3 kilometers later: it was Mohamed with that spoon I had originally approached him for: no charge.

written by  roel krabbendam on December 26, 2006 from Kairouan, Tunisia
from the travel blog: Harmattan
Send a Compliment

---

3 comments...

Tonight's menu:
1. pate du canard with figs and fruit sauces (very, very nice improvement on plain old pate)
2. consomme de...some seafood...
3. Turkey rolled around some kind of leafy vegetable: indescribable and great
4. creamed potato tower: think whipped cream, only potato...
5. custard with chocolate lines drawn on it, and english pudding
6. cafe au lait

I showed up so late, they gave it to me for 1/3 of the price, which, because I'm stingy as all hell except when I'm not, naturally quadrupled my pleasure.

Bonne nuit Mia.

written by  roel krabbendam on December 24, 2006 from Al Hammamat, Tunisia
from the travel blog: Harmattan
Send a Compliment

---

1 comment...

I left Sidi Bou Said at 2 pm, after dealing with the certainty that my maps were inadequate. Actually, I didn't deal with it: I convinced myself I was OK with what I had. I put my feet to the pedals for a stylish takeoff (hotel staff and tourists were watching), and promptly discovered that both trailer tires were flat. No holes, just flat. Filled those up, put my feet to the pedals for that stylish takeoff, got around the corner, and discovered I'd forgotten my helmet (yes, Polly, I'm wearing my helmet). Back to ask the hotel staff what they did with my helmet...and finally back to those feet on the pedals.

The plan for this trip was wind at my back (the Harmattan blows south in these parts). The first 20km was wind in my face across a long causeway to Tunis, which I hit at around rush hour. The beauty of that was I inhaled enough particulates to call it dinner. By nightfall I had barely exited urbanity, and found a campsite next to a highway.

Never camp next to a highway. After snuggling in and then wrestling with the idea of digging into my bags for more clothes and some ear plugs for about two tiresome hours, I finally got up the energy to do it. It didn't work. I didn't sleep. Great start.

Campsite under the bridge outside Tunis

Toothpicks, by the way: the only alternative to floss that I could find. More than you wanted to know.

written by  roel krabbendam on December 23, 2006 from Bou Jerga, Tunisia
from the travel blog: Harmattan
Send a Compliment

---

1 comment...

John and Larry at Pedal Power: the first time my bike fell, the weight of it caused one of the Profile bottle cages (selected for its flexibility to hold wide Nalgene bottles) to shear right off. The bike world needs a metal version of that design. Of course, to get rid of the shorn remains, I needed a 4mm allen wrench.

I stopped at a motorcycle repair shop in Mornag to ask about a 4mm allen wrench, but could only get the guy to unscrew the broken bottle cage with his wrench. Charge: 50 cents. At the next shop I could get the guy to understand I wanted the wrench and not the screwing, and he handed me his to keep. Charge: Free.

Back to those possibly inadequate maps. I'm relying on Michelin maps at 1:1000000 and printouts from Google Earth with placenames for my route only imported. Unfortunately, the roadsigns and the placenames don't match. I admit to the following idiocy, and don't tell anyone:

Michelin says take a right in the middle of Mornag. I saw the turn and decided it wouldn't get me where I wanted to go. I went straight, saw a left to get to the freeway, and thought that going straight might be what Michelin meant by taking a right. (OK, this explanation gets no easier from here: skip ahead with the knowledge that I'm an idiot if I've lost you already). I kept going straight, saw no recognizable placenames, and decided finally that I was on a different road that was less scenic but would also get me where I wanted to go. Rain began to fall. I thought that the road was awfully narrow to be the road I now thought I was on, but kept going anyway. All day. Buckets of rain. I decided what I really needed was one of those tourist hotels in Hammamet, on the coast. If I was on the road I thought I was on, then I had only 10 km to go. Night fell: I was so completely miserable that those hotels were now irresistable (ever try to set up a tent in the dark in the rain?) and I kept going by sense of smell and weak headlights. I met some police and asked them if the next left would get me to Hammamet. Oui. How far? 30 km. I thought: "They don't know what they're talking about". Off I went in the dark. 10 km. Mountains ahead. Something was wrong. I found a lonely cafe, walked in to see George Clooney selling Nespresso on French TV, and was instantly adopted by the owner. We reviewed the maps: my instincts in Mornag were correct and I had been on the originally intended road all along and Hammamet was another 20 km. away and I had been completely wrong all day. You promised not to tell.

Cafe Ranim

Skipped all that? Pick up the narrative here: The cafe owner bundled me off to the local natural hot spring public bath for 2 hours of soaking and detox with Hammam Salah, the local electrician. Turns out Hamam Salah is his cousin and also sleeps on a mattress on the floor as a kind of night watchman, but mostly because he is not getting along with his wife.

I am put up for the night: on another mattress on the floor right next to Hammam Salah. I admit to some anxiety around the sleeping arrangement, what may have been the difficulty betwen the electrician and his wife, and what he might be expecting of me. Those of you who have heard one of my stories from Morrocco will be following this, and the rest of you will have to use your imagination. All went well, and nothing transpired except that it was very cold, the cafe was unheated, and neither of us slept well at all. Shame on me for thinking anything else.

Talking to the electrician was like being at an American construction site, only in French: cashflow is always an issue and the architect thinks he has all the answers but doesn't.

Hammam Salah and friends

Hammam Salah's father fought with everyone, lived apart from his wife, but visited once every 9 months from the time she was 16. The electrician has 14 siblings and his mother is my age.

written by  roel krabbendam on December 23, 2006 from La Sebala du Mornag, Tunisia
from the travel blog: Harmattan
Send a Compliment

---

comment on this...

Hotel Dar Said

I did have a frantic 20 minutes (20 minutes!!! You think you know 20 minutes? Pay $2,000 to fly to a foreign country where you don't speak the language to find that you might have come for nothing: then you'll know 20 minutes!!!) looking for the pedals in my bike bags, thinking I'd left them at home, thinking honestly that it would be quite typical of me, thinking of the incomparable hassle I would face in finding the same clip species here as my Algerian visa slowly expires...but no, pedals found, trip intact.

Adel

George Bush

Considerations while grocery shopping:
1. What packs more densely: spaghetti or macaroni?
2. What cooks faster and uses less fuel: rice, spaghetti or vermiccelli?
3. What the hell do you add to rice/spaghetti/vermiccelli for flavor?
(answers at the end, and no peeking)

Met two motorcyclists back from the desert. Here's more or less what they were carrying:
(spare parts, gps, satellite phone, clean underwear).
Here's my stuff:
(tent, sleeping bag, pad, stove, gps, satellite phone, laptop, 2 cameras, tripod, solar collector, transformer, 2 spare tires, 2 inner tubes, bike tools, chess set (couldn't resist), maps, more maps, windbreaker, 4 wool hats (don't ask), bike helmet, 3 sets of clothes, long underwear, 2 eyeglasses, prescription goggles, (did I mention long underwear? Who knew it could be freezing in the Sahara? Really: anyone?), 4 tupperware containers, 4 ten liter water bladders, water filtration device, medical kit...I know I'm forgetting something...toothbrush...)