[WillowTheWhisp]

Heehee, maybe we could have a sideline Lettie.

Now, where was I with Tunisia?

Oh yes.

Once we'd mastered the art of travelling by car in Tunsia we decided to travel further north and explore Cap Bon. That's the northern peninsula, which is the most fertile part of the country. We'd mentioned our intentions to Nabil, the Panorama rep who gave us his own road map as the one we'd got wasn't too brilliant. It didn't have many roads marked on it and his was much better.

I think by this time he'd given up on us behaving like conventional holiday makers after we'd gone off on our own to buy a carpet. He was sure we would have paid over the odds as it is necessary to haggle over everything and they start out with vastly inflated prices but we'd simply stuck to our guns and told then "No, that's too much. We haven't got that much to spend" I'd wanted a green and cream carpet with maybe a little gold in it but they'd kept bringing out red ones and blue ones which simply wouldn't do in our dining room. All this went on for ages until they brought out a green one and mentioned some ludicrous price so we pretended to get up and leave. Then they managed to find a cheaper one but I told them I didn't like it. We were being entertained with cold drinks and shown a whole shop full of carpets. Eventually they showed us a green and cream carpet which I did like and we battled the price down to a fraction of what they'd originally asked. When we showed the rep a picture of the carpet he asked what we'd paid and what quality it was. (That goes by how many knots per inch) We told him and he said "Pounds? Not too bad I suppose" and when I said "No, Dinar" (there are over 2 dinar to the £) he whistled slowly through his teeth and said "Wow!" so then we knew we'd got a good deal. There's no chance of us ripping them off because if we don't offer enough then they simply don't sell it and away the carpet goes. We'd arranged for it to be sent to us by air to arrive a few weeks after we got home and we were a but apprehensive about whether or not it would arrive OK but it came last week safe and sound.

So, we were off up the north with our road map and sense of adventure. Nabil had suggested we do a little detour inland and visit Tubourbo Majus which is a Roman excavation site so we headed in that direction first. Once we'd left the main towns and tourist areas we felt like we were in the real Tunisia with its interesting little villages and isolated farms. We stopped to photograph one lovely scene at Takrouna a local woman came to ask if we'd like to photograph her and a baby. We thought that would be nice so Busman took the photo and suggested I give her a dinar as a tip (we'd been told to offer people a dinar if we took their photo) but she wasn't happy with one dinar, she wanted another one. I thought Oh, OK then and by then I was in the car so I wound the window down to pass another dinar through to her. She reached in and made a grab for all the change on the dash board! There wasn't much but I was so narked that she would do that. I'd put it there to pay the fees on the toll roads as we passed through them. I wound the window up on her to try to stop her getting it all and as I did so her brooch (a large silver thing holding her cloak at the shoulder) got caught and I pushed it back thrugh the window to her. I was later called a numpty by Mimi who said I should have kept that to make up for the money she'd nicked off us!

Here you can see the carpet, area I'm talking about round Takrouna and the thief in question! "Crimewatch Tunisia" If you're ever near Takrouna keep your eyes open for her.