You can find Arab Stories from Tunisia, Oman and the Yemeni island of Socotra in my fourth book of travel comedy. There, you will find out how to escape a medina from which there is seemingly no way out? What are the challenges of a desert dinner? What do rural gas stations in desert areas look like and how you have to fight a goat for the last carton of beer. In the book, you will also find ancient Roman cities, Berber grain warehouses and medieval Arab fortresses. You will find natural wonders and some of the longest empty beaches left on the planet. As well as colorful encounters with local characters from different biological species.
You can get acquainted with my Arab Stories by ordering the book at me@manyathetourist.com or through Manya the Tourist’s social media profiles, links are at the bottom of the page. You can listen to it in an audiobook version, recorded by me personally, on Storytel. Unfortunately, the book is only in Bulgarian right now, but English is coming!
The Medina of Tunis
The narrow streets were full of workers hurrying to and fro, leisurely matrons lugging huge bags of baguettes, children playing, gossiping girls and here and there old men smoking, squatting under an arch. Bags of rubbish lined up along the walls, probably waiting for it to be collected. Heaps of cats. The situation was made worse by the careless people flying by on motorbikes and scooters. As well as other absolute fools like us who were trying to get through all this crowd in a car.
In addition, our escape route from the square where we had parked – completely empty the night before – was blocked by a skinny, shaggy young man in flip-flops, who was unloading furniture from his small truck. To top it off, the satellite maps on my dear husband’s phone were still not working. Accordingly, we had absolutely no idea in which direction we should move to get from our Medina to the National Museum.
Socotra Island
Socotra Island is one of those destinations where it is difficult to organize a trip on your own. At the moment, it is even impossible, since it is almost cut off from the world thanks to the neglect of the mother country, Yemen, which has very serious problems of its own. The connection is made by Air Arabia flights from Abu Dhabi, once a week. You need to be very motivated when leaving for the island. If it turns out that you don’t like or tolerate something, you have no choice but to wait until next week, when there will be another flight. The views you will find on the Web may be fantastic, but keep in mind that neither the accommodation, nor the food, nor the transportation will be what you are used to. You can only hope that the beauty of nature will have enough strength to prevail over the everyday hardships of life.
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