A very cold day in the UK - so cold that Manchester airport was closed again yesterday (4th time this week) so we weren't sure what would be happening with our early morning flight.
At 3.30am when Ema picked us up the temperature in Greenmount was -8⁰! It was slightly better at the airport -7⁰ 😁
In the end our flight was only delayed by 1hr 20m so that wasn't too bad. Even the short walk out to the plane was pretty treacherous so the conditions yesterday when the airport closed with must have been awful after the snow!
Still lots of rock hard snow around though and lots of planes being de-iced before they set off - but leaving a bit later meant that we saw a pretty sunrise over the snowy hills.
Lovely to arrive in Djerba after a short three hours flight to blue skies and sunshine - and a warmer temperature of 18⁰.
Short taxi ride to our accomodation - a little flat overlooking the harbour. Nice touch with the flower petals - though I did have to clear them all up.. 🤣
Great view!
More flowers.
Walk down to the centre of Houmt Souk and a meal in the market.
A short walk in the evening around the harbour.
Some interesting birds wandering around including a spoon bill, heron and some sort of smaller heron type.
Both tired out so an early night.
Saturday 11 January
A late and lazy start to the day. Thought the flat might get the morning sun to warm it up but it doesn't get any. I'm sure that this is a blessing for most of the year but it makes for a nippy start in January - though after the Manchester temperatures we're not complaining!
We saw one of the pirate boats laden with people so at least some of them are operating through the winter.
We walked to the skull tower memorial. Not quite the huge tower we were expecting!
Then we headed towards the old part of the Souk that we hadn't explored yesterday.
We stopped to chat to a French couple - also tourists and here for a week. There are actually very few tourists around and British tourists are pretty rare anyway so everyone assumes that we are French.
We had a late breakfast of cake and hot chocolate.
Beautiful pottery at ridiculously low prices.
We eventually found the Carrefour supermarket - nothing like the French version.
As we didn't buy much we just wandered slowly back by yet another different route. Some 'interesting' shops - nearly walked into a cow's head dangling outside one butcher's and at another shop they thought we were very funny as we stared at three goats' heads hanging in a row.
We thought that the Carrefour supermarket would sell alcohol but it didn't so we were still on soft drinks only.. 😁
We dumped the shopping and wandered off for a short walk before the sun set and the temperature dropped. The light on the water as the sun set was very beautiful.
We found a lovely little restaurant on the sea front so we decided to eat there.
Great views out into the Med.
We ordered mocktails.
.
And gilt head bream. Beautifully presented propped up with wedges of lemon - delish!
As soon as the fish arrived so did the cats.
A lovely meal for the princely sum of £20!
Then it was back to the apartment.
'Map my walk' said we'd walked 8.5 miles and 40,000 steps!! My fit bit said 16k steps so about 7 miles - it just felt like 40k!!. 🤣
Sunday 12 January
Over time Djerba has been invaded by Arabs, Berbers, Sicilians, Spanish and latterly the French so all nationalities and languages are represented here. There are big Jewish, Muslim and Berber communities but luckily French is still spoken so at least we were able to recognise one language amongst all the Arabic and other scripts that we have no idea about.
Another short walk around the harbour.
We saw a lot of clay pots stacked up alongside the lobster creels and asked a local fisherman what they were. After gestures, mimes and broken French, Spanish and English he went to a bucket and pulled out an octopus.
That explained his waving about of 8 fingers..🤣 Not squid then. They apparently think they have found a safe place in the pots - before they are hauled out of the water.
Breakfast in a lovely little bar.
A strange mix of unidentifiable fruit juice, coffee, marble cake and hard boiled eggs.
But quite acceptable at 8 TND (Tunisian dinar) each - £2!
Taxi to Dijoun to visit the crocodile farm, heritage centre and museum. All housed together.
Surprisingly empty!
The crocs and other reptiles were more interesting than we thought they would be and all seemed well kept and content.
The display of housing types and interiors was interesting.
The man supposed to be demonstrating the weaving and spinning techniques was fast asleep so we didn't disturb him.. 🤫
Camel pulling water from the well.
The museum was excellent with some items dating back to the ninth and tenth centuries.
Great textiles too.
Ornate tent pegs.
Beautifully decorated doors and wooden trunks.
Taxi back to Houmt Souk and a sit down and non alcoholic drink in La Pecheur until it started to drizzle through the thin thatched roofing.
Sorted the chilly apartment problem by turning the oven on for an hour with the door open - soon warmed up!
Monday 13 January
Getting around the island..
There are no trains on Djerba but and the bus service is unreliable, un-timetabled and infrequent so public transport is mostly by taxi - yellow cabs are all over the place, metered (cheap!) and you just flag them down.
The other mode of transport which seemed to be used mainly by the locals (who know what they are doing 😁) is the louage - a sort of shared minibus/taxi - they have their own station which seemed very chaotic with no signage. Once they are full of people they go!
We decided to stick to the yellow cabs.. 😁
We popped to a cafe round the corner for breakfast and decided to try one of their specials - but just one between us. It was a huge amount of food so a good decision.
It seemed that we could by taking a taxi along the coast (not walking as shown in the pic!) and up onto the peninsula towards the nature reserve.
The taxi driver took us to the wrong place and we tried to walk there but we couldn't work out how (or even if it was possible!) to get across the salt marshes so we went to visit Medun instead - and found that the museum was closed on Monday - so we took another taxi part of the way back and then had a coast walk to our apartment.
Great timing as it started to rain just as we arrived. There were some very majestic looking clouds!
In the summer the boats must be jam packed with tourists sailing across to swim and enjoy the lunch which is provided. And of course to see the flamingos - which aren't actually there in the hotter months.. 🤷
Perfect timing we thought.
Having failed to get anywhere near on foot we decided to book on a pirate boat instead - even though we hadn't seen any of them leaving the harbour. Mike made an enquiry and it turns out they are all 'grounded' because of the bad weather! 🤣
What irony!
It seems that the weather atm - chilly out of the sun and a bit breezy at times, making the sea a bit choppy - is too much for the pretend pirate boats to sail in. So our chance to see pink flamingos in their natural habitat is scuppered!
Tuesday 14 January
Public holiday in Tunisia so we didn't go to a museum as planned. Instead we took a roundabout walk down to explore more of the town centre.
Quite breezy today and quite chilly in the apartment with all its tiled floors . No heating in here but also no air con so it must be like an oven in the summer with the temperature reaching 45⁰!
Once out in the sunshine it was a lot warmer. And once again the weather forecast (for light rain) was wrong and it stayed sunny and the balmy high teen temperatures predicted a few days ago have definitely not materialised.. 🤣
We thought we saw movement on one of the pirate boats so we went to check. Noone there but as the gang plank was in place I went on board for a quick nosy around.
We walked past Al Ghorba mosque on the way to the Souk - one of the main mosques in Djerba.
Behind it was a very ancient looking (but still in use!) children's amusement park. Very odd - it was like Banksy's Dismaland from a few years ago!
Sweet mint tea in the Souk - too hot to sit out in the sunshine for very long.. 🙄🥵
A wander through the indoor and outdoor Souk - quite nice not too much pressure from the vendors.
So many dramatic changes of light!
Meal in a restaurant round the corner - with WINE!
Wednesday 15 January
Took a taxi to look round the El Ghriba synagogue which is the oldest in the island established in the 6C BC. It was closed despite the internet saying it should be open!
So we walked down the road to Erriadh to look at the artwork on the walls and sides of houses in the village there. Started as an art exhibition in 2014 by 30 international street artists and still being added to today.
Fabulous 😍 Surprises and beautiful views around every corner!
Stopped for a drink and decided to try some Mloukhia which it said was a typical dish.
Bad decision.. 🫤
First impressions were not good. It tasted very bland and was quite gelatinous. There was a big lump of meat in it but apart from that we had no idea what it was!
We didn't finish it.. 🤣🤣🤣
Off next to the Guellala museum which apparently won a Trip Advisor award which was proudly displayed in loads of places - won in 2012 and then Highly commended in 2014 😁
The mannequins weren't very lifelike but the information about costumes, social history etc was really interesting.
Man preparing food for a village wedding feast.
Lady having her legs waxed prior to getting married - she doesn't look happy about it!
Some beautiful little corners!
Taxi back to the port and round to Haroun restaurant where we are last night and had alcohol!
Ordered beer.
Turns out it was 0.5⁰! But enjoyed it anyway - and the man bought over a brazier to keep us warm - very kind.
Took some pics of the pretend boat outside.
Then back to the apartment to eat the leftovers from yesterday - a full meal of couscous and kebabs!
Thursday 16 January
Last full day and forecast was for rain all day. This then changed to rain in the afternoon so we decided to go back to the 'Hood' for a further wander whilst the weather was ok.
Late breakfast in a little bar with a rooftop terrace.
Saw loads more that we hadn't seen yesterday.
My favourites from today..
Got back just before the heavy rain set in.
Evening meal in La Pecheur. Mistakenly ordered the fish by weight instead of the fixed price ones - so ended up with huge fish and a bill of more than we had budgeted for (trying to use our dinar before going home as it is a closed currency). Could have been quite embarrassing as the restaurant was cash only but luckily Mike had some euros in his wallet so we paid part dinar, part euro.. 🙄
Friday 17 January
