Oases in the Mountains (Chebika)

Member Name: Little Miss

Product:	Chebika
Date:	26/06/01 (106 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Amazing Scenery

Disadvantages: It get's hot, very hot

So why should you visit Chebika? The mountain Oases for one. Yes a mountain Oases, until recently I thought there was only one type of Oases, the type that are in the middle of a desert. I now know of three types of Oases although there could be more, there's desert, mountain and marine.

To go to the mountain Oases we hired a fourwheel drive vehicle with a driver, you'll see a lot of these speeding across the desert in this area. They seat six people and are airconditioned. I'm not sure of the price as I wasn't the one paying but most things in Tunisia are very reasonably priced. One word of warning, if you do rent one of these vehicles check it's tyres! We didn't notice until we'd been travelling in it for an hour or so and the tyres were as smooth as a babies bum. Saying this we were in a convoy with 4 other vehicles and the others were all fine.

The best time to visit the mountain Oases is early morning, we went about 9am and even at this time, it was rather warm. So slap on some high factor sun cream, a hat and investing in a thin long sleeved cotton shirt is a good idea, it stops you burning in the sun and shivering in the airconditioning.

We had a guide who led us down a path between the "mountains" (they really were more like rocky hills but in the flat surroundings I guess they pass as mountains. It starts with just a few palm trees along the side of the path and then opens out into a small clearing with more palm trees and a waterfall, which is actually a warm spring from which you can drink the water. Most people opted not to as it's very easy to get a stomach upset in Tunisia. At this point my camera came out and I got some lovely pictures. We then continued on up one of the mountains, not quite to the top, in fact we didn't go up that high really and they had built steps but in the heat it was very tiring but manageable. There was an elderly couple with us who had
a couple of stops on the way up but they made it, quite happliy. The view at the top certainly made up for the breathlessness on the way up. At the top you also look down on a Berber village which was ruined by floods in 1969. Again a great photo oppotunity. From there you could really see how barren the surrounding land was and how amazing it was that in the mist of it there were these fantastic palm trees.

After this our driver then took us to see another ruined Berber village and made a couple of other short stops at places with excellent views.

People generally give the driver a tip but we were told only to do so if we thought we'd received a good service, ie if the driver put the air conditioning on when asked. It was good to know this as when we first got in our vehicle the driver had his window down and the heat was awful.

Chebika is not somewhere you'd stay for long, in fact most things can be seen in a couple of hours (preferably morning hours), so here are a few suggestions on other things to do while your there.

Take a trip across the salt lake "Chotte El Jeird" the lake is actually dry but the sun shining on the salt is a very pleseant site and there are some small pools with different coloured water edges in solid masses of salt which almost looks like marble.

Once at the other side of the lake (it only takes about an hour) head for Douz. At Douz you can visit the edge of the Sahara, you may want to wait until the evening and take a camel ride into the Sahara at sunset. We hired Ali baba style head dresses and long gowns, you'll find most people do. I know your thinking how tacky and touristy and didn't we all look stupid. Well actually yes but then it was also fun and believe me if the sand is blowning it hurts and the gowns protect you. Also they protect you from the sun and any flys that maybe around the camels so it's really a good idea. Also sunglasses are
a good idea to stop sand getting in your eyes. If your worried about the camels, don't be we saw some very scary camels at other places and they also didn't look too healthy but at Douz the camels all looked very well and were rather friendly. Mine let me stroke his head and was very calm about it.

At Douz there is also a dessert Oases but I'm not sure that it is man made rather than natural and I personally thought the mountain Oases was far better.

Another great attraction in this area is Matmata which is where they filmed Star Wars but I've written a whole seperate opinion on that one.

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