Tunisia: Carthage, Tatooine, & Football

We walked out of the Tunis airport, chilled by the cold wind and light rain. The Uber driver called me and spoke to me in French, and we finally found him next to his taxi cab. It was early on a Sunday morning; the roads were clean, calm, and quiet. We were delighted to see a vivid rainbow across the city skyline…what a welcome to Tunisia! The city felt quite European because of its architecture and fashionable pedestrians, sipping on their coffee and eating crepes.

Our hostel was nestled deep in the Medina, a network of small, walkable cobblestone streets with many small shops and cafes. The architecture and aesthetics consisted of vivid blues and whites peppered with occasional mustard. The maze of the Medina is an energetic place full of cats asking for food, an occasional motorbike alarmingly zigzagging through crowded areas, and groups of teenagers milling about. Throughout our trip, we visited three other Medinas: Sidi Bou Said, Sousse, and Kairouan. All four were blue and white with narrow cobblestone streets, and each were breathtakingly beautiful.

We took a train to Carthage, which was Mekael’s main reason for traveling to Tunisia. We met our tour guide and hopped on bikes to tour the ruins. I learned that Carthage was a 700-year old civilization that included the northern coastline of Africa, Spain, Malta, Sardinia, and Sicily. It wasn’t until the Romans defeated them (during a 200-year war) that Carthage became a pile of ruins.

As I was researching Tunisia, I gasped in joy and excitement when I realized that Tunisia was the main filming location of Tatooine, a central planet from the beloved Star Wars universe. When I was talking to a fellow traveler, she told me with a big smile, “you should go to Tatooine.” Yes, that’s right; there’s an actual town that inspired the name of the infamous planet. There are many towns that were Star Wars filming locations throughout the country. Although we had originally planned on only visiting the capital city of Tunis, we lengthened our stay to drive to the small town of Tozeur to visit the filming location of the Lars Homestead, the iconic home which Luke Skywalker whined about and wanted to leave to see more of the galaxy. It was a 30-minute hike to visit the simple dome of the house, and I was giddy thinking about what took place here….not only was it here that a hero received his call to adventure, but legends like George Lucas and R2D2 were also here. Mekael kindly took exactly exactly one million photos of me next to it.

During our drive back to Tunis, we saw a sign that said “Stop Food” and therefore, we stopped…for food. We ate a classic Tunisian sandwich called a fricassee, which is tuna, egg, tomato, harissa, olives, carrots, and spice on a baguette. We also ate delicious lamb couscous, with onions, sauce, and raisins. We chatted with the owner who just opened his shop 9 months ago.

One of the main highlights, however, was watching the World Cup in Tunisia. On the day Tunisia was playing its first game, the excitement was palpable. We saw a woman holding a red flag out of a car sun roof, and we walked past a group of boys waving the Tunisian flag singing the national anthem. Mekael went to a coffee shop 90 minutes before the game began to save us seats. When I arrived, every square inch was full of fans. When the soccer ball moved toward the desired goal, the cheering got louder and people got on their feet. I’ll always have a little soft spot for Tunisia since it was the country we happened to be in when the World Cup 2022 began.