![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.runkevinrun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/POWER-CONVERTERS-ALTERNATE.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.runkevinrun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/IMG_3492.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nPlus some bonus shots of the day, because when in Tunisia, if you need a power converter there really is only one place to go: Tosche Station.<\/p>\n
And I\u2019m much happier with my pose at Obi Wan\u2019s hovel. Albeit looking back on it as I stand around here waiting for the fifth ferry, maybe I should\u2019ve thrown on my Poe\/Finn jacket. Is it too late to run back?<\/p>\n Also while killing time at the ferry docks I did grab a photo with this seemingly abandoned water fountain featuring a mermaid. Mondher tells me her sign roughly translates to \u201call light on nice beaches.\u201d That\u2019s a nice sentiment even if I\u2019m not entirely sure the English does justice to the poetry.<\/p>\n Later I spotted a Jedi Knight sitting beneath her. Might just be a local but I surreptitiously snapped this photo because I found it charming.<\/p>\n A few (okay, MANY) stray shots of Ajim\u2019s FerryLand (note: not it\u2019s real name).<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Seattle-ites, New Yorkians, Hong Kong-ians and everyone else used to ferries May be ho-hum about a ferry ride but it was kinda fun for me as a unique experience. Plus, did I mention it was in Tunisia?<\/p>\n There’s actually a bunch of video I took as well but this WiFi I’m using to try and get this uploaded at the hotel is maddeningly inconsistent.\u00a0 I’m lucky to get the photos up.\u00a0 I suspect trying to upload a video would cause the entire power grid to go boom.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n But back to the day in question — after our 15 minute voyage, we dock at El Jorf on the mainland around 10:45 am. Medenine is our next destination, home to the Skywalker slave quarters in THE PHANTOM MENACE.<\/p>\n The Szars are storage units\/graineries and they originated with the Berbers in the 11th Century. The storehouses were typically built into the mountains, and camouflaged to blend in.<\/p>\n In the 18th century, Arab villages started building their own szars, just as the one here in Medenine as village storage units. This particular szar were the exteriors for Shmi and Anakin Skywalker\u2019s slave quarters.<\/p>\n Remember it\u2019s been 19 years since the release so there\u2019s been a lot of development around the area. Kiosks\/storage have come and gone, albeit some still exist. Hard to tell what\u2019s current and what\u2019s closed and what\u2019s abandoned. And surrounding the area there are multistorey units and marketplaces galore.<\/p>\n I climbed all over to try and get different angles and perspectives. Hopefully some of these admittedly WAY-too-many-uploaded shots convey the scene… both as in the film and for the surrounding real world.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n We are currently 480 km from Tunis and will make our way back via various Star Wars locations. It will take several days…but that\u2019s mainly because I keep taking gigabytes of photos.<\/p>\n Tatouine, Tunisia, the namesake for Luke\u2019s home world of Tatooine, is a larger, newer town. We stop for sandwiches\/lunch because as Mohammed tells me, \u201cit\u2019s not Ramadan; we are not fasting.\u201d I like these guys. They are funny guys.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t speak French or Arabic, nor the mixture of the two that flows between the two but I KNOW that tone. It\u2019s \u201cI don\u2019t know… what do YOU want to eat?\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t care. How about that place?\u201d \u201cNo, not there.\u201d \u201cWell, then what do YOU want?\u201d We wind up at this chicken place. I said I only needed something small. This is what happened:<\/p>\n Afterwards they told me Tatouine is famous for its gazelle horn (I *think* that\u2019s what they told me) a small pastry filled with almonds and dipped in honey.<\/p>\n It\u2019s like a bear claw, except not really at all. It\u2019s super sweet and super good but good god! I need to find out how to say \u201cjust a little\u201d and have it mean what I think it means. Apparently un peu<\/em> isn\u2019t getting it done.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n We stopped at a Berber grainery storage, the Ksar Mgabla, dating as I said before from the 11th Century.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Tunisia feels a lot less like Tatooine and a lot more like Arizona or New Mexico… with a few more olive and palm trees.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Another town, another Ksar, this one an 18th Century Arab one called El Farch.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n The Ksar Hedada is the second location for the Mos Espa Slavs Quarters for THE PHANTOM MENACE. Qui Gon Jinn and Shmi have a chat about Anakin\u2019s miraculous birth on a balcony here as well as being the site of a midichlorian (sigh) blood test.<\/p>\n Mohammed and Mondher told me last week they had two guys from the Carolinas on this same tour and they were super fans. They donated some of their props thus I was a hand-me-down beneficiary.<\/p>\n FN-2187, is that you?<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a throwaway shot of a giant dinosaur on a mountain – it marks where dino bones were discovered here in Tunisia.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n We made one final ksar stop at Hallou, a Berber ksar built on a steep hilltop. Two fortresses stand guard over it on adjoining mountaintops.<\/p>\n A local shared some mint tea with me; I tipped him a dinar, though I wish he hadn\u2019t stuffed a bunch of fresh mint into my jacket pocket as it disintegrated and now there\u2019s tiny mint leaves all over the place.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a fun fact: all places in Tunisia that begin with T are of Berber origins, including the country\u2019s name.<\/p>\n Here for example is a T-Berber village that was founded in the 11th Century.<\/p>\n A view of Toujene:<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n As the sun was setting we cane to Matmata, a place that has five dig out pits that up until the late 1960s were pretty much all that was around here. A lot has changed in the intervening decades, not least of which were multiple appearances in a little film series called Star Wars.<\/p>\n I\u2019m staying the night at Hotel Sidi Driss which is quite literally the interiors for the Lars Family Homestead.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n How to describe sleeping at the Hotel Sidi Driss?\u00a0 If you were to find yourself in East Germany in 1988, sleeping in an abandoned train car that had been left in, uh, a dilapidated quarry, that might approximate it.\u00a0 My room is number 15 (George Lucas apparently used to stay in 8\u2026 or so I hear tell).\u00a0 There\u2019s one light switch\/outlet.\u00a0 If you plug anything into the outlet, the switch cannot be turned on which makes the room pitchblack.<\/p>\n I\u2019m in hole three.\u00a0 The main Star Wars Lars Homestead location is hole two.\u00a0 There are five holes in total but I\u2019m not sure how to access the rest of them, even if I were to try and rappel down into them.\u00a0 In 1969, there wasn\u2019t much else around and here\u2019s a photo in the lobby that shows what it was like way back when.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve always loved photos of an area in its past.\u00a0 Perhaps that\u2019s why I\u2019m drawn to these Star Wars locations.\u00a0 Yes, it is one of my beloved franchises and I know the classic trilogy better than almost any work of art.\u00a0 But there\u2019s something especially charming about seeing the \u201csets\u201d and locations 41+ years on from A New Hope or 19+ years on from The Phantom Menace.\u00a0 The world has changed, the surroundings have changed, and yet as we pull up onto locations in our 4×4 or round the corner whilst walking, I know the space overwhelmingly as a Star Wars space.\u00a0 Is it the air, the architecture or dare I say the Force that draws me so?<\/p>\n And thus while this hotel is especially weird \u2013 bathrooms and showers aren\u2019t even in my hole?\u00a0 No worries.\u00a0 I can wear shoes to cross the open courtyard if I feel the need to use the facilities \u2013 I\u2019m glad I\u2019m here.\u00a0 I\u2019m glad I\u2019m only here one night, but I\u2019m glad I\u2019m here.<\/p>\n They\u2019re currently investigating a renovation of the space to better recreate the Lars Homestead and restore the moisture farm atmosphere to the place.\u00a0\u00a0 Me?\u00a0 Despite the crappy amenities, I kinda dig the rusted faded glory of the place.\u00a0 To those that know and care, that original movie vibe is the stuff of legend \u2013 what a crazy idea George Lucas had.\u00a0 A space western saga with aliens and robots and bizarre words like Kenobi and Mos Eisley and Jedi and Sith.\u00a0 It was a young man\u2019s dream writ large that caught the imagination of the world.<\/p>\n Why did I compare the present day hotel with 1988 East Germany?\u00a0 There\u2019s a bar attached to the place\u2026 not a cantina, a bar\u2026 and the drunken Eastern Europeans karoaking\u2026 poorly\u2026 to Lady Gaga\u2019s Poker Face over and over and over again (they only seemed to know the lyrics \u201cPO-PO-PO-PO-PO-PO-Poker Face!\u201d) were the main accompaniment to my not-very-good dinner.\u00a0 I ate much more of it than I intended, illogically thinking if I stuffed my face long enough my own shewing might overpower the cat-drone of our Faux Gaga-ettes.<\/p>\n Such is life\u2026 they stumbled off and I was left on my own to wander about and snap some late night photos before they shut the power down.<\/p>\n That also meant though that the weak WiFi in the pit of these living holes was shut down too\u2026 meaning this blog post is going up later than I\u2019d like.\u00a0 But what\u2019cha gonna do?\u00a0 You can\u2019t fight the galactic empire\u2026 or can you?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s not my fault… Or, well, maybe it is. Even though they run fairly consistently, the ferry takes some time. It\u2019s taking quite a while to get through the queue to get onboard. We got today\u2019s itinerary started at least 40 minutes late as I wanted to go back and reshoot at Toshe Station and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22694\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>\u00a0<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/a><\/a> <\/a> <\/a>\u00a0 <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n