Day 7: Mahdia, El-Jem, and the Side of the Road

I woke up early the day after my birthday in order to take advantage of the little time I had left at our hotel. A friend and I hit the beach at 7:30, desperate to get one last plunge in the Mediterranean before heading back to the US. I was surprised at how comfortable the water was—it was mid-November after all. After this I went to the buffet and had a delicious omelet and fresh crepes. I like to think that I’m pretty easy to please as far as hotels go, but I certainly didn’t mind spending the night in the lap of luxury.



We drove for about an hour to what we thought was the final stop of our trip: the Coliseum of El-Jem. The coliseum of El-Jem is the third largest of the Roman Empire. While the coliseum in Rome was meant to hold something like 46,000 people, the coliseum of El-Jem held a measly 30,000. It was pretty incredible and had excellent acoustics—something that probably holds true in Rome as well but I’ve never noticed because it’s always crawling with tourists.



About an hour outside of Tunis we got a flat tire. This was no fun, but it did allow us the opportunity to see a beautiful sunset. We waited for several hours (and several attempts to change the tired) before a second bus came to pick us up. One really remarkable thing about this flat was when we pulled to the side of the road there already happened to be a tow truck pulled to the side of the road ahead of us. I have no idea how we got that kind of luck. As fantastic as our weeklong trip to the south was, it really felt good to come back to Tunis that has come to feel like home over the past ten weeks.

For more pictures of my trip to the south, check out my flickr.