The trip
The lines postreras the desert war between the Allies and the soldiers of Hitler and Mussolini are written in southern Tunisia 1943. For six months, the chessboard World War II also included this North African country. The world then his eyes set on the northern coast of the black continent, where the troops of General Erwin Rommel, nicknamed "The Desert Fox", struggled to establish a "bridgehead" with southern Europe, largely in the hands of the Axis powers. "Journeys to the Past" offers this time a tour through the scenes of the throes of that painful struggle.
For that you have to leave for a few days comfort beaches or resorts like Hammamet Monastir and put rumba to about, at the door of the Sahara, following the footsteps of the skirmishes of Rommel and Montgomery troops in places like Gabes, Douz, Chott el Jerid, Nefta o Gafsa.
A mere eight-hour drive from the capital, in the Gulf of Gabes overlook the remains of German bunkers where, Italian, British and Americans fought copper. At this point, flees the sea road and enters a stony secarral thickets and dry washes that has nothing to envy to the Monegros. Looks like someone had fun with a scorching flamethrower throughout the area. But the devastation also has its virtue and these places have been the perfect setting for unforgettable scenes filming of movies like "The English Patient", "The Star Wars" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark".
The dictatorship of the desert
The troglodyte houses carved into the earth by the Berber tribe matmata (more than 300 at the time, Today only about thirty) resist in this arid moonscape no other horizon than the toll to tourists in the form of tips. Young people have long since turned their backs to the desert and prefer to make a living on the nearby island of Djerba hotels or tourist destinations in northern Tunisia. The death sentence of these troglodytes XXI century is written long ago and its inhabitants know. Maybe that's why being photographed by visitors accepting some money to help them prolong the slow and inexorable agony.
The death sentence of these troglodytes XXI century is written long ago and its inhabitants know. Maybe that's why being photographed by visitors accepting some money to help them prolong the slow and inexorable agony
The struggle of these people to stop the advance of the desert is epic. Its unique "Maginot Line" are successive plantations rows of palm trees that struggle to remember the Sahara sands unwelcome. This task depress the Sisyphus himself, because the desert, that knows no sentimentality, advances at the rate of five acres annually.
Rommel, Chott el Jerid pioneer
Douz is the starting point for exploring the horizons of white salt lake of Chott el Jerid, the last refuge of Rommel. The newspapers of the time reported in February 1943 capture by the troops of the "Desert Fox" oasis bordering the Sahara, strengthening its position around Chott el Jerid. The 24 of the month, eg, "La Vanguardia Spanish" realized that Rommel's offensive in southern Tunisia had managed to create "a wedge into allied territory whose danger comes of being supported in Chott el Jerid at its base and have achieved, north, the domain of presiding over mountain passes around and Kasserine Feriana ".
After an hour and a quarter at the wheel, the traveler reaches the foothills of the Great Salt Lake, 25.000 square kilometers of former seabed geological vagaries that weather left thousands of years ago. Rommel was the first to cross, leading his troops Africakorps, this desert brackish avoided even seasoned Arab merchant caravans. Parallel to the route that followed the German General currently runs the road through Chott el Jerid. The traveler can still appreciate, driven into the ground, Yellow stakes which served the soldiers to mark the itinerary, one careful not to get lost in the vastness of this kingdom light salt and worthy of the most careful mirages Thumb. Any forecast is low in a place where the thermometer in August reaches the 50 degrees Celsius and in the reality often profiles drawn with the imagination.
"A beautiful die, lifetime honor "
Rommel's fortunes began to go wrong when French troops occupied Tozeur, on the northwestern shore of Lake, in March 1943. The 8 April, Transocean agency informed its subscribers that the Eighth British Army had approached "the German-Italian defensive lines between the eastern margin of Chott el Jerid and the coast". Depression brackish, Captain Sartorius added, its editor on the front, "Is almost an insurmountable barrier Montgomery deprives any possibility of a flanking". Although the only opportunity to dislodge salt lake Rommel went through a frontal attack, the fate of the Axis troops seemed to be thrown.
And Chott el Jerid, the locals have built statues of salt at sunset take on a ghostly appearance dates and children sold to visitors at the roadside where ruminated his defeat Rommel. The traveler walks on the tarmac of salt (whose thickness reaches seven meters) staring at a horizon that coincides with the steppe landscape, the same which looked upon the withdrawal of Africakorps. The 13 April 1943 the chronicler of "La Vanguardia Spanish" Manuel Pombo detailing from Berlin the "rush" situation living in southern Tunisia German troops "in appalling conditions of inferiority". "Almost surrounded by the British army and American-wrote the reporter, the forces of Rommel and von Armin seem to have so permeated with Italian comrades who want to implement the well-known phrase Neapolitan: "A beautiful die, honors lifetime "". Much more pragmatic, Rommel had taken to his heels. The 14 May, Axis troops threw the towel, but "The Desert Fox" is no longer the commanding. A few weeks earlier had flown to Germany to demand reinforcements to Hitler, depriving the Allies of the desired photograph of your catch.
The road
Tunisair offers regular flights between Spain and Tunisia. From the capital or the resorts of Hammamet or Monastir, it's best to rent a car to get to Chott el Jerid. The return trip requires at least two days and the road is good. If preferred, hotels offer the same bus route (from 160 dinars, about one hundred euros).
A nap
To reach the salt lake, is almost forced to spend the night in Douz. At the edge of the Sahara desert, worthwhile to take a break and spare no expense. The Mouraid allows travelers to relax in the hotel pool, in an enclave swept by the simulation, the relentless and tenacious desert wind that permeates even the toilet paper rolls rooms, not a minor pleasure.
A table set
If the traveler does not want to survive on dates, it is best to stockpile calories in the hotel buffet. Your stomach will thank you.
Highly Recommended
Approach to admire the first dunes of the Sahara Douz outside is inescapable for any curious. Climb a camel and venture a few meters in the desert in a caravan of tourists is another matter and depends on the greater or lesser sense of the ridiculous of each. The traveler chose to jump-start, but warns that took weeks intrepid rid of all the sand with the Sahara gave his warm welcome.
