kairouan, southern sun

the next stop was kairouan, which i had pretty high expectations for. it is, after all, the 4th holiest city of islam and home to one of the world's oldest mosques. in addition it's called the "city of fifty mosques." as we arrived in town we were greeted by many shops with cow's heads hanging in the window. (not particularly shocking after seeing goats' heads and cows' hooves in the markets in tunis).

we enjoyed walking around in the warm southern sun and exploring the winding streets of the old town. i suppose the streets were very similar to the other towns we had been to - simple white walls with colorful doors and windows - but somehow it seemed less touristy and more 'real'. eventually we made it to the great mosque which we weren't able to go inside (we had just missed its open hours) but had a lovely view of from a nearby terrace. we stayed at the store to be polite, and for a nice carpet show with tea. kairouan being the carpet capital of tunisia, we were able to see some beautiful silks as well as big berber rugs. we were all enjoying ourselves but jasmine's enthusiasm was apparent - particularly when she lunged for the carpets, fingers splayed. needless to say she ended up spending a little dinaro (ha) there. not one, but two rugs! they were beautiful, of course. somehow as we came back we found ourselves in another carpet store where paloma and vince bought rugs as well.

we returned to our hotel, right next to the medina. it was a splurge at 13 dinar (around 7 euro) for our private room. its best feature was the open rooftop which we decided to take advantage of. we went up just before dusk with the idea of spreading out on our rugs and enjoying our hookah and pastries as the sun went down. we had some issues setting up the hookah - it turned into a 2-hour ordeal of replacing parts and finding a working lighter.

but in the meantime we enjoyed a beautiful sunset and watched as the lights went up in the medina during the call to prayer. we waited until the stars came out before we went out for a dinner of 2 dinar chapati (omelette, tuna and veggies in a pita) during which we were invited into what we think was a living room and serenaded by american hip hop music. a fun ending to our nice evening.