Douz -Tozeur

Tue 9/5/23

Another early start today (as always, sunrise is at 5.20am this time of the year here), walking around the vicinity, then we requested for breakfast at 7am. We waited for a bit for the mother to buy some bread from nearby, and were served the breakfast of bread, tea, coffee, boiled eggs with cheese and local berry jam. 

breakfast today

Today we will be driving to Tozeur, about 250km away (about 4 hours driving), but we would be making a few stops along the way. We drove through the mountainous region of Toujane and Matmata to our first destination today - Hotel Sidi Idriss - a troglodyte cave hotel and yet another Star Wars filming location for Episode IV: A New Hope. It is located just 30km from our hotel, so we arrived early here. We arrived so early in the morning at 9am that the hotel hasn't even played the Star Wars soundtrack in the background. There were no other visitors during our visit.  There were still some props from the movie, although the hotel have repainted and redesigned them. The entrance fee for visiting only is TND 1 per person.  

driving view in Toujane

Star Wars props inside the troglodyte cave hotel Sidi Idriss

Star Wars props inside Hotel Sidi Idriss

We then drove another 100km to Douz, the gateway to the Sahara desert in Tunisia. It is also one of the objectives my trip to visit the Sahara desert as I have never been to a desert before. We could see the landscape changing to desert terrain when entering Douz where there are sand along the road and date plantations. Some I read somewhere that we should try the local dish of 'golla' in Douz, so we stopped by for lunch to have the gargoullete d'agneau and couscous mouton at Restaurant Les Palmiers. Lunch cost TND 59

landscape changing to desert terrain

gargoullete d'agneau

couscous mouton

After having lunch, we continued our journey to Tozeur, another 130km away. The landscape now changes to a salt lake as we passed through the Chott El Djerid but there is no water currently in May. According to Wikipedia, it is the largest salt pan of the Sahara Desert. Due to the harsh hot desert climate during summer , water evaporates from the lake and we can see salt accumulations. I didn't taste it though to verify whether it is salty. During winter, when the lake is full, it can be crossed by boat. We stopped by the road at Chott El Djerid to fly the drone briefly as it was very windy. 

salt mound

extracted salt

Chott El Djerid dried up salt lake

Chott El Djerid dried up salt lake

Chott El Djerid dried up salt lake

Chott El Djerid

From the salt lake, it was just another 50km drive to our accommodation for the next 3 days in Hotel El Arich in Tozeur (EUR 98  or TND 331 or RM 495 for 3 nights per room with simple breakfast) which we paid by credit card. After checking in and refreshing ourselves (it was really hot out there, temperatures reaching 37 celcius!) we went for groceries shopping at Carrefour (again! - because we could pay by credit card here). Tonight we only had the Carrefour baguette (it was quite good and cheap, only TND 0.75) for dinner.

simple room at Hotel El Arich

interior of the hotel