Kairouan and Takrouna

This Saturday's trip was to Kairouan. Before heading out to Kairouan, my roommates and I asked our host mom what we should expect. She explained to us that Kairouan was the fourth holiest city in Islam (following Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem). It is the holiest city in all of North Africa. Apparently, Muhammed's hairdresser brought Islam to Kairouan and the religion spread outward across the region.


Our first stop were some Roman cisterns. These cisterns were quite boring... but made instantly cooler once you realized that they were constructed over 1000 years ago.


Next we stopped by the Great Mosque. Constructed (originally) in 670 AD and then rebuilt a little later on in the 9th century, I think this is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, mosques in North Africa and maybe even all of Africa. This is also the first mosque I've ever been inside. Tourists are allowed inside the courtyard if they are properly attired... if you aren't, you are handed a floor length robe to cover up. (Yes, mom, I dressed modestly enough that I didn't need one). The mosque was quite impressive, a huge courtyard, beautiful carving around the doors and hundreds upon hundreds of columns. As non-Muslims we were not allowed inside the part of the mosque where praying takes place, but we were allowed to peer in the doors and take pictures.


After we perused the mosque, my roommates and I dashed outside to find this pretty tiled thing (I can't explain it, see the picture) on the roof of a building nearby. It's on the cover of Alissa's Dorling Kindersley Tunisia Guide and it looks gorgeous. We were assured by our director that it was a tourist trap, but took off just the same. And yes, we were told by a man that we could find it inside a carpet shop and were then forced to admire 10-20 carpets before we managed to get out and go up the stairs on the roof... from which we could see this thing on a different roof. Alissa had promised to buy a rug from them, but they had gotten us and we knew it. We darted down the stairs and into the next rug shop which kindly let us in and up with no hassle at all. It was very pretty, but I'm sure that our directors are right when they say that it's a modern day creation done by the rug shop simply to attract tourists.


Following the mosque came the tomb of Muhammed's hairdresser. Our directors explained to us that there are several towns that claim to have the tomb of this hairdresser, so there is chance that the one we were visiting wasn't real. Regardless, the building was beautiful. While we were there we saw families that had come on pilgrimage to visit the tomb. We were told that families on pilgrimage are allowed to stay in the building for free and use the facilities of the building.


Our next stop was the rug museum filled with many old rugs from Kairouan and other parts of Tunisi. It was a short trip and soon we were off for a lunch and a dessert of Makroudh, which I can only describe as Tunisian fig newtons (though I'm not sure there are even figs in them).



Following this, we explored Kairouan's medina, which I really enjoyed. While Tunises medina is quite large with many small windy roads, Kairouan's medina has more or less one wide road with shops off of it. It was nice not to feel so hemmed in. We spent a significant amount of time in a rug shop in the medina where I ALMOST splurged and bought a rug. Kairouan is known for their rugs, if you haven't guessed by the fact that I've mentioned rugs at least three times so far. In addition, we saw the camel in the picture below. Before I left Tunis we asked my host mother what we should see. She told us that there is a camel in a cafe that walks around a well pulling up water day in and day out. Apparently someone told her that the camel is brought up there as a baby and is left there its entire life, just pulling up water. I confronted the camel handler about this and he said that it was just a story, the camel goes up and down each day. The camel was cool to see, especially after we knew that weren't seeing animal cruelty in action. We drank some of the water it pulled up, if you drink it you will return to Kairouan one day.


After the medina we headed back in the direction of Tunis. On the way, we stopped for tea in the Berber hill town of Takrouna. As you approach the town you see a craggy little mountain with houses clinging to its tip. Apparently many Berber towns are built on hills (for the obvious reasons). Getting up the tiny mountain in a minibus is no small task. Our driver burnt out the clutch as we jerked our way up the mountainside. I thought I was going to die, but, then again, I feel that every day on the streets of Tunis. I applaud our bus driver for his effort. Once at the top, we ooohed and awed and the beautiful scenery. From the top of this mountain you get a fantastic panoramic view of hills, feilds, mountains, goats, olive groves... and then a cement factory belching out smoke. If you ignore that cement factory, it's really a phenomenal view. The little houses at the top seemed very southwestern to me, especially with red peppers and rugs hanging all over them. I don't think anyone still lives at the top of the mountain (I could easily be wrong) but there are still several shops and a beautiful cafe that we spent some time at. I think I've liked Takrouna the best of all the places we've visited so far.



We made one last stop on the way home: the Water Palace. A set of roman ruins right next to a mountain where the aqueducts started that led to Carthage. Unfortunately, it was pitch black out and we couldn't really see anything, but we did have a nice time making shadow puppets on the walls of the palace. We also had a difficult time seeing the aqueducts along the road as we drove back, but from what I could see they were pretty impressive and quite complete in some places.

I took a lot of pictures this past weekend and I've posted many of them on My Flickr. I strongly suggest you stop by and check them out. I'm sorry this post was so long in coming, I had some blogger issues.