The Great Tunisian Flood of 1969

Nothing much to see here, apart from:

• Tunisia is a desert- this sort of stuff is to be expected
• Tunisia is a superbly interesting place – everyone should go there at least once – not least for the Roman history/architecture/ruins

I’ve been twice, just for a fortnight’s holiday – in ’85 and ’87

The beach/sea at Hammamet is something else. Walk out into the water, it is bath-tub warm and you can keep going for 500+ yards and it never gets more than a metre deep. Perfectly flat level soft sand all the way. It must be insanely salty also, roll onto your back and you’re unsinkable – like a rubber duck

Now the really interesting coincidences kick in.
2nd time I was there would have been this almost exact time of year, 2nd or 3rd week of September
Had been tempted previously but this time took the plunge on the bus-trip down to Medenine and Tataouine to ‘see the desert‘ and have a ride on a real camel = 3 days and 2 nights

All very lovely but on the way back, barely ¼ of the way (note the time of year I mentioned) – the sky went black and it started raining. Not hard, just gentle constant drizzle
The restrained panic in the bus crew was palpable but for us Englishers/ Tourists, so what?
It was just a bit of drizzle.

Then the sandy plain that stretched out either side of the bus became a lake.
We came to a ‘bridge’ = some 12″ concrete pipes that the road ran over and 2 or 3 of them were missing.
We all had to get out, unload everything and push the coach over this thing.

Me, as the Cumbrian Farmer simply couldn’t believe or understand it – the water we were all paddling in was only an inch or so deep but the bus was (nearly) stuck……and water stretched as far as you could see and had destroyed the road!
Just what?
We made it back to Hammamet to be told we had to leave early and via Tunis airport – our intended/planned/scheduled at Monastir was washed out.
The rain we travelled through was just torrential.

NB: Early/Mid September = exactly when Hurricane Daniel happened and not long after ‘Palermo’

Prior to that on the previous visit, the pair of us liked to sit on the hotel roof-balcony of an evening – to take in the sounds/smells/vibe of the town below.
Only a 2 storey hotel, as most buildings were.
Again: as The Farmer, what happened was fascinating.
Around 8 in the evening, maybe every other evening, we could see on the far south east horizon a lightning storm.
But not any Lightning Storm – the thing that struck up was crazy wild – like a room full of Tesla coils all going off at once.
Was the storm out over the sea or was it happening inland?
Flash after flash after flash all overlapping each other. Constant blizzard of light.
But there was deathly silence. No thunder, no distant rumble, nothing.

That made it creepy enough but at the same time, a breeze picked up.
And compared to the breeze-less heat of the daytime and early evening – this was straight out of Day After Tomorrow. It was arctic.
=Time to retire inside to a nice little restaurant.
I’d go back up to check on the lightning but it had always gone.

It bothers me to this day – what did actually cause that?
What was going on there?

to be continued – me the farmer again