On the road in Tunisia: Seeing beyond the exotic veneer

The medina is a maze, cobbled alleyways branch off in every direction. House fronts have been converted into shops, where men wait outside, shouting ‘hello’, ‘hola’, ‘ciao’, until they find the mask that fits. These vendors are language entrepreneurs, promising ‘cheaper than Asda price’ and ‘just looking, looking costs nothing’.

Today we are moving out of the city, leaving behind echoes of the Mediterranean conquerors and their whitewashed buildings, where nowadays westerners quibble over pennies for pottery and camel leather. We weave through the backstreets, past grocery shops and butchers. Round one corner, there is a garage with stacks of chunky tyres, each tyre’s tread varies in depth, on some there is a thick layer of dust where the imprint once was.

Finally we are out of Sousse.

A little way along the road, a factory chugging plumes of smoke comes into view. A sign points towards this monstrosity, it reads ‘la zone d'électricité et la zone touristique’. Tourists and electricity, I can’t help but wonder which one it is producing. After this glimpse of industry, we drive through acres of olive plantations, where the leaves are that brittle grey, green colour,

As we travel the road the dense groves of date palms, olive and almond trees, become erratic and sparse. The infrastructure collapses. At this point I begin to understand the meaning of off-road, the ground is forever tumbling and falling, peaking and rising, never still. Our four-by-four slices sand tracks, causing dust to lift up and whirl in little eddies, so that through the open window I breathe the Sahara in.

Our driver, Samir flicks the radio from a station which is crackling and blending white noise with pop music to an Arabic cassette; a fusion of sounds are emitted - warbling notes, palpitating drums, bells. Samir has not said much since we have got into the car, but just as I start to hum he points far out to the right hand side, to a trail of figures, blink once and you’d miss it.