Matmata, Tunisia
Most people go through Matmata on package tours, staying a few hours or a night at the most. It pays to stay, as the landscapes are stunning and life is good and unhurried. Taking walks on pink-orange orange desert hills soothes the heart and quietens the mind. The eye sees far on the treeless landscape, so you may walk at random with little fear of getting lost. (I am afraid of dogs, though, so I always carry a few rocks to throw just in case.) The terrain is wrinkled like lizard skin. You can follow dry river beds for a long way or decide to get a view and walk up and down the many ridges. Amid the pink of the soil, you'll pass green islands where farmers have flattened the ground to collect the infrequent rainfall for date trees. Near the village, you will come upon large holes in the ground: If you look down, you will see the courtyards of underground houses.
We made this postcard as a gift to the manager of the hotel where we spent a beautiful week. Who knows if he'll use it?
The Diar El Barbar hotel was just outside of Matmata, in the South. Some of the rooms were "troglodyte-style", which means they were dug out into the earth, according to the style of the region. Digging your dwelling hides you from raiders in turbulent times, and it gives you a pleasant temperature year-round, as the air below the earth stays cool. Opal miners in White Cliffs and Cooper Pedy (Australia) have adopted the same strategy.
You may find the landscapes familiar from the Star War movies that were shot there. As all over Tunisia, the people in Matmata were super friendly, especially if you take the trouble to learn a few words of Tunisian Arabic.
From the hotel, town is ten to fifteen minutes away on foot. You'll want to buy your bottled water there rather than at the hotel. (Or better yet, bring it from Gabes.) There's a public internet café behind the main square.
Our tour agent back in Tunis is well worth looking up if you need travel services anywhere in Tunisia. In fact, we don't have enough words to praise this fine gentleman, whose name is Mokhtar Ben Messoud. (No words.) He works at Carthage tours, on the main street of Tunis. The main office is at 59 Av. Bourguiba, but to see Mokhtar, from the busy office on the ground floor they will send you to a spacious and quiet corporate office around the corner, a few doors down. The phone number for Mokhtar at Carthage Tours is +216-71-351-833; the fax number is +216-71-330-902.
To get to Matmata, you can hop on a bus to Gabes. Then take a shared taxi ("louage") to Matmata, taking care to specify that you are going to the old Matmata, as the new town is fifteen minutes down the hill. In fact, unless you strike a deal with the louage driver, you may have to change vans in New Matmata.