Add to this the sky-high prices (Understandable, of course! I daren’t even contemplate the logistics and figures involved in keeping a string of horses in this entirely unnatural urban behemoth!), and I often find myself flicking through the horse-y press’ classified sections entitled ‘Holidays’ and ‘Intensive Courses’. If you don’t get to go that often, I say treat yourself to an all-you-can-eat experience when the chance arises!

And so, with much emphasis these days on suggesting that you avoid the euro to allow your hard-earned quid to stretch further, we toyed with the idea of a summer break in Tunisia. Browsing through various brochures, we found First Choice’s provided the appropriate detail in their pages. I was completely swayed by the proximity of the stables at Iberostar’s Sahara Beach Hotel in Skanes, Monastir. They were, apparently, on site!

I’d been to resorts with stables before, and happily have yet to be disappointed: namely Club Med Agadir in Morocco (Club Med excellence, as always, but this did involve a brief shuttle ride from the grounds), and the legendary Jebel Ali Hotel in Dubai (A little out of our price range this time around). Upon arrival in Monastir though, on the kind of blazing July morning I pine for from my Middle Eastern childhood, I could all but contain myself and refrain from chiming in with the excited cries of the kids on our transfer coach as we rolled into the Sahara Beach, “Look, Mum! It’s got it’s own stables!” The ‘Club d’ Equitation’ was, indeed, the very first thing you saw.

This did it for me on that holiday, you see. It was all the expected fun ‘n’ larks involved in staying in a club-style resort (i.e. days spent in the sunshine amidst the shared, raucous conviviality of a truly international clientele; the infectious energy of the reps, most notably that cheeky one with all the in-jokes for the Brits; a few hilarious, water-up-the-nose, bum-bashing beach sports thrown into the all-inclusive package; the poolside and after dinner entertainment, where you continue to stuff yourself silly despite having just gorged on the sprawling buffets).. Pretty full, occupancy-wise, at this time of year but it was time to drop any such aversion carted from home. This wasn’t a commuting crush to work – we were on holiday, and the good memories were meant to be there for the taking should you choose. All this with the knowledge that I could top it all off by riding almost everyday if I wanted to! I could be up before anyone else at dawn’s cool breezes, or take in a glorious North African sunset atop my Arab or Barb steed whenever I wished (for less than half of what I would pay back home) …And all I had to do was trot down the driveway, even if I simply wanted to deliver the sugar cubes, that I’d stashed in my pockets at lunch, to soft equine muzzles, sleepily gracious form the height of the day’s heat!

Ambling down ‘Commercial Street’ (the open corridor the resort provided for external businesses to tout their wares to the guests on their way to and from the dining halls) is where we met our first friendly equestrian representative …And I mean friendly! The Tunisians disarm you with an instant, easy-going warmth that, I’m ashamed to say, made me almost suspicious at first – such is the sad, paranoid effect of modern, big city living (see the shaking off of the shackles of your day-to-day annoyances above. Just another tightly-wound aspect of it…and if you think I’m harshly opinionated, you try dealing with the sleazy male mutants I encounter working in a kids bookshop, for goodness’ sake!) …But I was so pleasantly surprised at such genuine good will here.. A little stand had been set up, plastered with photos of horses and riders: both of slouching but extremely smiley beginners, to the evident life-long perfected horsemanship of the owners and staff. Our cheery chap signed us up for the evening ride of our first full day, and thus we were launched into our little two-week world of horse-y adventures, Berber-style!

The quietest rides marched away at 5pm every day, doing barely more than walking nose-to-tail down the beach and back (Best thing to do as it was still quite scorching at that hour, and each to their own. Had my mum been with us, it would’ve been right up her street!) The 6pm ride took in a trot or two, and maybe a canter for those who wanted it; and the 7pm ride had you galloping home as the last light faded. If you had the magnificent presence of mind (that can only come with being completely in holiday mode; i.e. insanely energetic in the knowledge that you’re getting up to do something FUN!) to actually rise sometime after 5am and make the 6am two-hour ride (Again, thank goodness the yard was so close by!), you were in for something fast and furious seeing that the beaches were almost empty at this time. I opted for these as often as I could, as they most resembled the trek holidays I’d pored over in specialist brochures back home. Numbers were also small on these rides, so they often involved stops: tying your horse to a post ‘outside-a-saloon’ style, and sipping a coffee at still only 7:30 in the morning, at that sweet-natured expense of your guides. Long chats and playground shenanigans ensued that padded those morning rides out to well over the allotted time, only to return when everyone else was merely rising for breakfast. The whole fun day was still ahead!

I tended to ride stallions. Just their mention was a tad alarming at first (which I found I shared with fellow countrymen – well, women, actually – who also came to ride over the two weeks). Stallions are, of course, known for their dominating personalities back home, and are not the best option when you either don’t know them very well or where you are riding them out to. A safe ‘two chevrons’ from the rest of the ride, to avoid any kicks or bites, was essential for starters! The Sahara Beach horses were incredible confidence-givers, though. I found them exuberant, feisty and fast when they needed to be, yet endearingly quiet and docile, whatever their gender, when it was equally required: while tacking them up, or untangling yourself from the bunching-up with the rest of the ride that occurred from time to time out among the twisty palm tree trails, or even on the hairy bend of a racetrack we visited! It wasn’t a week before I found that letting them release their pent-up energy, and going flat out was amazingly, entirely safe. You would always be able to slow them down…

I’d have to credit their training to their owners: a father and son team who’d adopted some quite enchanting methods with their horses, such as responding to various human whistles. This playful atmosphere abided fittingly throughout the holiday yard, form the complete lack of over-worked, hanging horse heads at the back of their sunny loose boxes, right down to the silly lop-eared, resident Alsatians that seemed to greet everybody by ploughing playfully into them! Yes, I was right back in that animal-filled haven of my youth.

Other than the beach, we cantered through wild eucalyptus groves around adjacent resorts, and galloped along the banks of red-hued ‘chotts’ (dried salt lakes) between us and Monastir’s airport. Depending on the experience of those in the group, fun races were also on the cards! I loved slamming back into our home stretch of beach, several horses abreast, whooping like a mad, swelled-out ‘Magnificent Seven’!

Most of the friends I made at the resort came from those rides, including some who drove from nearby hotels. It’s always special to genuinely maintain a holiday friendship through shared passions and fantastic memories (Yes, that’s you my dear Melanie!) I rode so often that the owners would ask me to lead rides, assist with the younger horses, and help promote the stables among the guests. It became a lovely way of life for a while, especially as the same host family would absolutely insist that my other half and I join them each evening for more mayhem (!) and merriment. (Your ‘Candid About Travel’ founder (my other half mentioned) developed quite a following at the table on these evenings, bantering away with this amiable bunch of stable hands and hotel staff, after braving his first ever crazy beach canter! I was extremely proud!) It was a family affair that brought about big, sad goodbyes when our stay came to an end… Among the holiday-makers I’d met, there were a few who’d returned after a previous visit… Something we’re certain to also do now that Tunisian friends, both four-legged and two, are beckoning.

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The Tunisian holiday was eventually decided upon mainly due to the ‘bargain’ equestrian break it offered, but we also certainly made the most of the sights. Above them all, personally speaking, was the nation’s position as a gateway to the Sahara!

Monastir is a short drive southeast from Skanes, accessible by a mini train that connects the resorts. I was relieved to find a fixed price gift centre, as – yes – I am one of those who cringes even as a spectator to haggling! The 8^th century Ribat is fantastic for a confirmed Monty Python fan, as it was used as a location for ‘The Life Of Brian’. All together now: “’ROMANI ITE DOMUM!’ Now write it out a hundred times…”

Sousse is a slightly longer drive north, which presents another time-transforming Ribat, plus a heaving Medina at its centre. With its Kasbah and Great Mosque, this is one of eight UNESCO World Heritage sites in Tunisia (two others being the site of Carthage and the amphitheatre of El Jem ~ see below). Port el Kantaoui is an almost completely purpose-built tourist town. This is to take nothing away from its spotlessly chic marina, where we took a sprawling catamaran out to sea: whoppingly stark white, and expectedly westernised, but I could’ve done without the gangster rap soundtrack! Nothing a personal mp3 player wouldn’t fix though and, I don’t know if it was merely the heat of the day or just the sun’s reflection off of all of that white…(!) but I returned baked to a crisp from that one!

An excursion with ‘Tunisie Voyages’ to Carthage was something we were looking forward to, but was unfortunately marred by a guide who bore the manner of a sour old headmaster prone to reprimanding everyone at every opportunity! Comically enamoured by the sound of his own voice, we bore over an hour of his gassing at the key displays in Tunis’ Bardo Museum. It was clear on the faces of our coach party that they were aching to drift away and take in the wealth of artefacts at their own pace (The Bardo boasts the world’s richest collection of mosaics). Things got unbearable at the site of Carthage itself, where our diminutive host actually insisted that we pore over a MODEL of the Antonine Baths, listening to him drone on and on- with the REAL THING all around us, bathed in glorious sunshine against a glistening Gulf of Tunis! By this point, a few folk had cracked and the sarcastic quips and sniggers started to emerge among us. Some (which we divulged included university archaeology majors and teachers) started to simply walk away. Despite patronising efforts by our guide to make us stay and continue to suffer him, he eventually relented and instructed that we had FIFTEEN MINUTES to take in the ruins by ourselves before meeting back at the coach! Nobody could believe it! It’s hard to break free at these sorts of things, mainly because you have no real idea of where you are and you don’t want to get left behind. Power lies with the masses, though, and I’m sure we all wished we’d banded together sooner in mini protest. I don’t think we were the only ones who felt cheated out of truly visiting circa the year 800 BC’s worth of history at Carthage. Let that be a lesson should you ever draw the short straw in such a patience-sapping tour guide!

The complete opposite could be said of the top man we had over our two-day epic to the Sahara Desert (thank goodness!) Mr. Issam, from the same tour company, was an absolute star! Endearingly passionate about where he was taking us, he also adhered to that simple but golden point that we were on holiday, not at school. We wanted to experience, learn AND enjoy it! From the off, at the magnificent 3^rd century Roman amphitheatre at El Jem, we knew we were in for a good’un! Issam briefed us quickly on its gory history, and then left us a whole hour to indulge our daydreams (from the safe distance of seventeen hundred-odd years) and pretend to be Russell Crowe! Exploring beneath the once blood-soaked arena floor (something you can only imagine at the Coliseum in Rome) was particularly atmospheric: amongst only the shafts of sunlight over the dusty holds (that at times reportedly still smell of the poor lions and other beasts they caged), marvelling over the quaking fear and certainty of death the gladiators must have resigned themselves to while waiting for show-time!

Film sets came thick and fast! Only 4×4’s could handle the terrain into the eastern part of the desert to visit Tozeur’s location for ‘The English Patient’ (remember the other worldy, camel-shaped rock’?) and Ounk Jemel’s searing moonscape that features in ‘Star Wars: The Phantom Menace’ The insane heat made the latter in particular quite surreal: I was parched and dizzy enough to believe that ol’R2 and C3PO really would appear, kicking sand about while descending the powdery dunes! The troglodyte ‘Sidi Driss Hotel’ in Matmata, the location for our first day’s lunch, completed the ‘Star Wars’ fantasy. Were Luke Skywalker’s aunt and uncle (from the original film) going to be around to dish out seconds? We couldn’t wait to watch the films again back home to see where we’d been!

Chebika gorge and stone village, a working Berber troglodyte house, and the vast Chott El Jerid (yet another ‘Star Wars’ feature) were also included on the trip. It was amazing how the vistas changed as we dozed on and off on the coach, thrown out of balance by the very early morning starts required to beat the heat. One moment, your head would be dipping before endless groves of olives, only to wake on a landscape more befitting the blue/grey of, say, Venus! El Jerid’s eerie vastness must be a gift for sci-fi location hunters!

The Saharan highlight was still to come in the form of as sunset camel train into the desert at Douz. Our party truly got into the spirit of things and dressed up for the occasion, for a few dinars. Once again, our guide’s enthusiasm did much to encourage us as he egged on his “fearless nomads” to ride into action! Despite an overly chatty camel wrangler (who was only doing his utmost to ensure a hefty tip), we had to pinch ourselves while taking in our surroundings: it was like every sand-duned epic you’d ever seen, in IMAX! The giant burning orb of a sun, blurred by its own heat, sank slowly behind un-broken dunes that seemed to wash up on oases of clustered palms… Shepherds herded their goats back from these as the light started to fail, against the evening rhythm of nomadic drum beats; one’s tiny donkey so used to this ritual that he walked on ahead of them all, unguided, with his little load… My utter legend of a character camel’s silhouette grew longer and longer as we headed back home…

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A hospitable welcome is something that is waved around all to easily in the travel press and its advertising, but I found it to be real – more often than not- in Tunisia. It certainly haunts my memories in a way few destinations have, especially after merely a single visit. Tunisia’s romance succeeded in capturing me! How more rich our experiences are if we just allow those moments and incidents that encourage us to give ourselves up to foreign worlds, simpler values, customs faded from childhood memory and, most importantly, new faces… Strangers who embrace you so completely that you forget such differences between you ever existed at all!

Technorati Tags: Bargain, Cheap Riding Holiday, Desert, History, Riding, Sightseeing, Watersports

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