In the morning, we drove over Medenine to Tatouine. Midway between Gabes and Medenine, we saw lots of people selling a pink looking fluid in plastic containers. When we stopped and asked, we found out it was gasoline! Probably for trips in the desert. Anyway, it is always a good idea to fill your depot whenever you see a gas station. We only saw ones in the cities.

If you need to buy some gasoline...

On the way

From Tatouine, we drove to Ksar Ouled Soltane. “Ksar” seems to mean “Fort”, and consists of an ancient type of houses which all open into a courtyard with only one entrance to the outside world. At Ksar Ouled Soltane, the buildings were heavily restored. They had an interesting, apartment-building-like appearance with many storeys. Many tourists seem to come here, mainly with daily tours from the island Djerba.
 

Ksar Ouled Soltane	Ksar Ouled Soltane
Ksar Ouled Soltane - The entrance to the ksar	Ksar Ouled Soltane

Then we returned to Tatouine, and went to Doiret and Chenini. The countryside in the circle Tatouine-Doiret-Chenini-Tatouine is very picturesque, and worth seeing. The valleys are similar to those in the race scenes of Star Wars/The Phantom Menace. Actually parts of the film were shot in this region of Tunisia.
 
 

Doiret	Old door in Doiret
Chenini	On the way between Doiret and Chenini
On the way between Doiret and Chenini

Doiret is also a very picturesque little village. The old dwellings seem to be one with the hill. A similar view is also available in Chenini. Both places are really worthwile visiting. On the road from Chenini, just at the entrance of Tatouine, we found a quite nice hotel: Hotel Mabrouk. It had three stars, and cost 30 Dinars per person including breakfast. The rooms were exceptionally clean, and the towels and sheets were really really nice-colourful and of good quality. However, the food in the hotel was quite expensive: 12 Dinars per person for a set menu. There were no alcoholic drinks either. So we again went to the restaurant where we hadhad lunch: "Le Petite Restaurant de la Mediterannee" in the city center. A simple, but clean, typical tiny Tunisian restaurant with friendly people. At 8 o'clock pm they had only some salads and omelettes left as choice (at lunch we had chicken, couscous, etc.), so we had a simple nice dinner (4,5 Dinars in total for two people). Then we went to the very nice Hotel Sangho beside our hotel, and had some drinks :-) (2,5 Dinars for one local beer).

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