Tunisia - The Olive Coast

The trip from El Jem took us back to the coast where we stopped for a break by an ocean promenade in Mahres. It was now getting into the heat of the day so I bought an ice cream and went for a walk. There was all sorts of odd sculptures along the beach, one of which is below. It was a quaint seaside town - and I think the last stop where we weren't continuously hassled by people trying to sell us stuff.

After Mahres, we continued driving along what is called the "olive coast". One of Tunisia's main exports is olives, and the trees were seemingly endless. One of the funny parts of this part of the road was that people had set up their own roadside petrol stations. They simply had piled 20 or 30 jerry cans of gas up and were selling gas right on the side of the road! One of the not so funny parts of this part of the journey was the truck which had flipped over on the road. This led to a traffic jam unlike anything I have ever seen! It was a complete free for all. The two lane road suddenly became 3 or 4 lanes with vehicles all over the place and half in the ditch. It took forever to get our tour bus through the chaos. But eventually we did.

We then continued on our way to Gabes where we stopped to have lunch. Then it was off to the desert!