I already told you before that I went to Djerba on holiday - which ended up being a mini holiday - but I never shared anything more about it, so todays post is all about my holiday! For those of you that don't know, Djerba is an island and is a part of Tunisia, a North-African country that is squished in between Libya and Algeria. Djerba is the largest North-African island and is on the South of Tunisia. If that isn't clear enough, I don't know it anymore! Because of the attacks in Sousse on the 26th of June, we had to return after only four days. Even though it wasn't long, I loved every single moment of my stay and want to share it with you.



First of all: the people. I went there with my mom and a lot of people said it wasn't a smart idea to go there with two women. We often got the question why we wanted to go there and whether it was safe to go without a man. Honestly? All of this was crap. The people were extremely kind and often very funny.  My mom said that the people in the souks in Morocco were very pushy, they literally grab your hand and pull you inside their shops. They didn't here! When you're walking through the touristic souks, everyone is talking to you and convincing you to come in,  but when you ask them to leave you alone, they do. We also visited the market of Houmt-Souk where the local people buy their stuff and no one even looked at us!


Tourism is very important for Tunisia and definitely on Djerba, where there aren't a lot of other jobs. A lot of people have to work long hours and many days during the touristic season, because life isn't easy there. That's why it's even worse that the attacks had to happen in Sousse. A lot of tour operators decided to return their tourists and although that's very comprehensible because of the safety risk, it's a complete disaster for the Tunisians. If there are no tourists, they have no job. If you can (or dare to) go to Tunisia, do it! They really need us. The weather is also really nice. Our vacation was in the last week of June and we had temperatures around 30°C everyday. The nice thing is that there's a constant breeze because it's an island, which makes lying in the sun a lot more pleasant. We obviously visited some things too, so I want to tell you something more about that!



Midoun
There are two larger cities on the island, Midoun and Houmt-Souk. The latter is the capitals island, which I will talk about later. Midoun was the closest city near our hotel so we visited that first. The easiest way to get around the island is by taxi. There are taxis everywhere and they're really cheap! They charge around 1 Tunisian Dinar per kilometer, which is 50 cents in Euro. We paid 3 euros to get to Midoun, better than going by bus! Midoun is obviously a tourist town. It's filled with souvenir shops and shops that sell fake things. There are sneaker shops - Nike, New Balance, Adidas, ... - and then you have shops that literally sell everything. Some of it is really nice quality (or at least that's what it looks like) and the most difficult thing is that you have to negotiate. In a lot of North-African countries it's normal to negotiate the price. They often propose a ridiculously high price and if you're good, you usually end up paying half. My mom and I weren't too comfortable with this and weren't that good either, but that wasn't really a problem. There are some 'fixed price'-shops as well, where you do not need to negotiate. We were a little disappointed by Midoun, because we didn't know it's a tourist town. There was no old town centre or anything like that and we actually hoped for it. It's amazing if you want to do some shopping or experience the shouting and the negotiating, but there's nothing cultural to see.






Houmt-Souk
Houmt-Souk is the capital of Djerba and is quite a lot bigger than Midoun. Even though it was rather touristy as well, there were more things to see! Our taxi driver dropped us off near the central market, which is where the Tunisians buy their food. We passed the fish market, which was cool to see! Imagine this: an old man, sitting on a chair that is placed on top of a table, holding fishes in the air one by one so people can bid on it. Quite an event! Although the market was crowded, there weren't any cafes or restaurants open because it was Ramadan. Quite a weird sight! We also visited the 'Marina' - the harbor - and it was completely deserted! There were several restaurants, but they were all still closed. We passed several mosques, once during prayer, which was rather impressive to see. We also visited the Fort, which was fun to do, but it's different than forts in Europe. They collected everything they found and put it together, but nothing was restored. It was worth visiting though! A lot of the history of Djerba was explained on panels and I love knowing more about a country's history, so that was nice. We were the only visitors there. I feel like most people don't leave their hotel and definitely don't do anything cultural, but I liked doing it!


Houmt-Souk was worth the visit, Midoun wasn't - unless if you want to go shopping of course! There were more interesting things to do and we had planned a trip with our travel agency, but we had to go home before even having the chance to do that! I don't know if I want to go back, because it's not like there is so much more that I can still visit. I hated leaving though, I didn't want to obey the threat but we had no choice since there was no possibility to go home if we didn't go at that moment. I can definitely recommend going to Djerba! The weather is amazing, the people are extremely friendly and there are some things to visit but you don't have to if you don't want. I go crazy when I don't come out of the hotel, but if you don't, Djerba is great to get a tan!