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After an unforthcoming visit to the Libyan consulate, where we had hoped to get any information about entry to Libya, we raced for the ferry only to see the midday one pulling away from its mornings. We duly lined the bike up alongside donkeys and lorries in the queue, and with the help of Paul Theroux and DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover waited two hours for the next one. The islands had been highly recommended, and the last recommendation had also given us the name of a hotel and the price we should pay for the room. Fortunately it was the first place we saw on entering the small town of Remla, and without too much fuss we set a deal for 16 dinar / £8 for both of us. With this in mind we decided to stay a while and wait for the visa references…

We stayed so long we became part of the furniture. Greeted daily by shop keepers and cafe owners we feel truly absorbed into island life by the 3rd day: from the milewi (Arabic bread) man to the rather frighteningly hard looking ex-jazz musician in the bar, we felt bosom buddies with most of the island. We chatted to the lovelorn men in coffee shops, eccentric guardians in abandoned Roman ruins. It was enlightening, if a little claustrophobic. Apparently the population of the island rises ten fold in summer time when tourists descend. According to our friendly hotelier, Raed, the British government had an agreement with the Hotel Grand in the west of Kerkennah by which English women of “un certain age” could come and find Tunisian husbands (of a somewhat lesser age).

Kerkennah was idyllic in so many ways; dusty streets lined with rusting, much used, ancient two-stroke peddle-start scooters; men in dated pinstriped suits looking colonially out of place; the blissful silence interrupted by the farcical bray of the ever complaining donkey about the drudgery of life; scrawny cats slinking past doorways taking cover from passersby and chewing on carelessly discarded scraps of food; the unhurried pace of life, making do, getting on… It would have been too easy to have stayed and stayed, but leaving the sex tourism and the idyllic turquoise sea and sandy beaches behind we once more took the ferry, muddling in amongst all sorts of other curious passengers and their vehicles.

We had decided to do a week’s whistle stop tour of the south by way of the Star Wars film set village and the Saharan dunes with camels, salt flats and sun, heat, more sun, and then a bit more. The road south of Matmata, where you are never far away from something reminding you Hollywood was once here, was hot and dusty, and something we soon got used to. The further south we went the more expensive the water became, tripling in cost. Matmata sits about 100 miles inland; there is a neighbouring village called Toujane, 30 miles down a twisting, shimmering road. We stopped to enquire about accommodation in an “auberge”. We eventually declined the offer of an Arabic futon, and having to cross the road to use the family bathroom for all ablutions’ in favour of a troglodyte hotel room where we met a Dutch/Czech couple.

It was great to chat to people other than each other, and we wiled away a good hour perched in our troglodyte dwelling chatting beneath the stars. On their recommendation we set off the next day for the oasis town of Ksar Ghilane. As the ground flattened, the plants disappeared and heat rose several degrees, we realised we were entering the desert Proper. Despite our topped up water supplies we felt a trickle of concern at the unrelenting emptiness of the wind whipped bakingly hot road. Not a place to break down we realised after passing a second donkey skeleton. Reaching green palms and human life was greatly comforting and, clambering off the sweltering bike into the warm murky springs, heaven sent. After soaking away the hardcore drive we returned to base camp and met Mohammed, our Saharan guide, and two camels ready to take us into the dunes…

Whilst the hot springs in the oasis were deeply relaxing after the seemingly relentless drive through drifting sands, how clean the spring water was didn’t bare asking. It was noticeable the locals were not to be found in them…

Mohammed was delightful. Sadly not on his own camel, our caravan was somewhat small with only the two beasts. I was somewhat put out to be shown the smaller and rear camel, but in retrospect it was as well Flora had the larger leading camel. She has now been sitting on the back, my big head for a view for too long, and now I began to see how the other side was. We set off into the desert at 6pm, the worst heat of the day beginning to dissipate, Mohammed leading the way on foot. Getting on was a minor feat as first up went the back feet and then jerkily the front, nearly unseating me. I found the large round squelchy front feet of the camel fascinating as it plodded along, over scrub bush and dune alike, and the rhythm of the camel easy to slip into. All too soon we made camp hugging the side of a dune, and following Mohammed off into the dunes to find brush to make our campfire with.

Expecting perhaps a readymade tent to welcome us, we were a little surprised but delighted to discover it was just going to be the three of us out in the open. After setting up a fire and laying down a few rugs we quickly felt settled into our new windswept base. However, as dusk fell, and I’d finished chopping vegetables for our stew, Mohammed began to look concerned. The wind wasn’t abating and the sand was whipping our faces. He ran up a hill and did lots of Saharan native things: throwing sand in the air while looking intently into the distance. Matt and I fidgeted below, mystified, entranced and a little concerned.

Eventually he rejoined us and told us to move the camp to behind a different knoll (now fluent in all Tunisian sign language we had no trouble quickly interpreting these instructions). With all the urgency of city dwellers in the wild, we hastily moved the blankets and camel saddles to our new spot while Mohammed magicked a new fire. Now properly dark, we lent him a head torch to wrap around his turban in order to finish the cooking. In about 5 seconds he produced a beautiful dough from the flour in a camel sack and then, spreading the fire out so only glowing embers remained, threw it onto the hot sand. Somehow, 10 minutes later a delicious, heavy (rather sandy it has to be said) flat bread was presented to us along with bubbling spiced vegetable stew. A carpet of stars appeared and, as we leaned back against the wooden camel saddles, Mohammed got out a tamtam drum and began to sing plaintive desert songs about love, and camels.

Shooting stars and racing satellites, plaintive Arabic love songs and being in the middle of a Saharan sandstorm made for a truly memorable and wonderfully romantic foray into the desert proper. In the morning, clearing sand from our ears, mouths, noses, and sleeping bags, we set off with Mohammed to find father and son camels. The son clearly hadn’t been up for a wild night and was found quickly. Father camel had been off visiting one of his desert ladies and it required a phone call from Mo to one of his desert buddies to retrieve the recalcitrant beast. We took a last dip in the hot springs before leaving the oasis in the full heat of the day. With the nights’ storm having dumped a little more sand, poor Flora had to walk a good 100 metres in full bike gear and blistering heat whilst I struggled to get the bike through the deep sand. Once through it, we hit the road, and were soon battling with another horizontal lashing of fine, painfull, invasive sand. We managed to outrun it, and stopping in a nameless dusty town for a late lunch, made for Tozeur across the dizzyingly flat and endlessly blank Chott El Jerid salt flats: not a living thing is to be seen, the shimmering haze making us see things which weren’t really there, we felt as if we might be experiencing an hallucinogenic trip…