Road to desert

I really love traveling. Every year, if I can, I take, at least, two Holidays.
I started traveling when I was young. At the beginning I traveled around Europe, then I started visiting further places like Japan, new York, Thailand, Kenya. One of my best holidays was the one in Tunisia. My boyfriend and I went to Sicily by car for our summer holiday and suddenly we decided to change plan and to go to Tunisia, so we took a ship and we traveled all night.

It turned out to become a wonderful holiday. After some days in Tunis we started our journey to the desert. On the way we passed through the salt lake called Chott el Djerid. It is the Sahara’s largest salt pan with a surface area of 5.000 square kilometers. During the summer the temperature reaches 50° C, water evaporates from the lake and you can see some mirages.
One of my favorite stops was at the small village of Douz, the gateway to the Sahara, about 500 kilometers from Tunis. Historically it was an important stop on the trans – Saharan caravan routes and it is famous for its historical animal market. From there we took a trip to the Sahara desert by camel and we slept in the desert. It was magic !But what made my trip to Tunisia so memorable was the people I met along the way. I remember a very intense moment when we met some men in an oasis and we started talking to them. Before leaving, we gave them a present: our inflatable mattress. They didn’t know what it was, they had never seen one before. We told them what it was and how to inflate it. They were so happy that they gave us everything they had: lots of desert roses and a lot of dates, which were delicious.
I prefer organizing my own trips rather than buying tour operator packages becauseI think that it is the right way to get to know native people, to learn their life and their traditions, and to learn to respect them.
I think I’ll return to Africa soon.