Trips

Sat., 2/25/23 - Berber Villages

Today's excursion was to some of the outlying Berber villages. It was very windy, so the blowing sand made it hard to see far across the desert during this 2 hour 20 minute drive.

The first stop was in the Berber village of Chenini. It is a village of houses built in and on a sandstone mountain side. Once, 5,000 people lived in Chenini but now there are only 800 inhabitants. In 1996 the village got electricity and in 2016 they got running water.

First we visited a resident whose home is built back into the cliff. The exterior courtyard is of stone. He showed us the interior and the keys for the very old doors.

	Our host
Old door	Requiring a very large key
Assorted keys	Interior
Exteriors
Next we walked up the stone paths, in the tremendous wind, to see the Mosque of the Seven Sleepers that was built in the 11th c. The town is known for its white mosque among the brown houses.	Looking out across the land
Mountain-top town of Chenini	Mosque of the Seven Sleepers
On the other side of the valley	Stone path to the top
Mosque of the Seven Sleepers	Mosque of the Seven Sleepers
We entered a cave house and looked at the owner’s art gallery. The stone walls and ceilings are plastered with convenient niches. The kitchen is outdoors.	Interesting sign
Outside the art gallery	Outside the art gallery
Outside the art gallery	Village scene
Village scene	Restaurant sign
View from the top	View from the top and piles of stones for sale. The pile on the right is Desert Rose.
Ruins	A mother walking with her children in the wind
At the top	In the sandstorm
Village scene	More of the "path"
Village scene	Wash basin at the "comfort stop"
Nice door	The next stop of the day was at the town of Ksar Ouled Debbab where we toured the Ksar Ouled Debbab Hotel where previous OAT groups had stayed for two nights, instead of in Djerba. It was the pits - disgusting. Everyone on the last OAT group got sick on the food and the rooms were dirty and in poor shape. It was well worth two days of long drives to have avoided staying in this place! The site was once like a caravansary with 284 rooms and place to feed camels.
Ksar Ouled Debbab Hotel	Ksar Ouled Debbab Hotel
Ksar Ouled Debbab Hotel	Ksar Ouled Debbab Hotel
Ksar Ouled Debbab Hotel	Rusted relics of British cars and tanks from WWII
A Star Wars 4 movie was filmed on the desert around Chenini and Tataouine	Star Wars 4
More sandstorm	Pasino Casino - we passed this on the way back to Djerba

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