DAY 16 – DOUGGA 6 RUINS ROMAN II (THE SEQUEL)
Catch a louge taxi to Tebersouk to see some other well preserved ‘Ruins Roman at Dougga. Once again the best of the mosaics, statues etc have been relocated to the Bardo museum in Tunis.
Louge taxis are definitely the way to travel in Tunisia. They work like this. In ever city there is a louge taxi station where the louge taxis meet. The taxis all go in different directions and the drivers loudly call out the names of the places they are going to three times in a row e.g. “Gabes! Gabes! Gabes!” As soon as a particular taxi is full it leaves. Sometimes this means you wait an hour. Sometimes you get lucky and fill the last seat, which means you leave straight away. Competition for seats can get a bit tough and you need to be a little bit territorial. Otherwise you could have your luggage removed and watch you taxi go without you when you are just over the road buying fruit (as happened to me in Jendouba). The other great advantage of louge taxis is that they are fast. I mean we are not talking Moroccan taxi driver fast here but these guys work on the clock and overtaking is the name of the game. So much so that it’s quite common to be overtaking one vehicle and be staring down the throat of another louge taxi overtaking someone coming from the other direction. Best of all they cost about the same as buses and trains and the prices are fixed by the government so there is no monkey business.
Getting back to Tunis I book into the Maison des Junes which is French for house of the young people. It sounds little pervy to say you are staying at the house of the young people in English so I just use YHA where possible. My luck is in and I find a French guy, an English guy and a Swedish chick that all speak fluent English. I savour my first proper conversations since Marrakech, seven long days ago.
