{"id":22833,"date":"2018-03-02T01:49:49","date_gmt":"2018-03-02T06:49:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.runkevinrun.com\/?p=22833"},"modified":"2018-03-02T01:49:49","modified_gmt":"2018-03-02T06:49:49","slug":"march-1-2018-kid-ive-flown-from-one-side-of-this-galaxy-to-the-other-ive-seen-a-lot-of-strange-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/?p=22833","title":{"rendered":"March 1, 2018 \u2013 \u201cKid, I’ve flown from one side of this galaxy to the other. I’ve seen a lot of strange stuff\u2026\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was a very weird night at the Lar Homestead.\u00a0 A Chinese tour group turned up around 11:30 PM and seemingly filled the courtyard.\u00a0 They tried to enter my room as well, I guess they figured they had bought out the place.\u00a0 But that was the least of my problems sleeping.\u00a0 I fell down one step whilst trying to get out to the bathroom and hit the ground hard.\u00a0 I scraped my knee, my right hip and my back.\u00a0 I\u2019m seriously sore this morning.\u00a0 On top of that, I got yelled at by owner who I think thought I was part of the Chinese contingent that had been karoaking themselves into the wee hours\u2026 only slowly did he realize I was another guest of the hotel and was simply waiting for breakfast.\u00a0 I ate as always way too much bread.
\n\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I wish I hadn\u2019t hurt my back and hip.\u00a0 I was toying with going for a short run tomorrow to restart that exercise regime…. and to address the over indulgence in food and sloth I\u2019ve been embracing.\u00a0 But even sitting in this 4×4 as we drive for 90 minutes on the N20 to Douz, I\u2019m feel a bit of pain at every jostle.\u00a0 I try a range of motions to see what causes what pain.\u00a0 The arm movement inherent in my running stride is particularly painful.\u00a0 Swell.<\/p>\n

As a general note on all the posts — I\u2019m not sure any of the photos of me are working.\u00a0 I feel sick and bloated and my hair is a mess.\u00a0 It\u2019s vanity mixed with reality I know.\u00a0 Hopefully the non-me shots are passably scrollable.<\/p>\n

This is a bizarrely stream of consciousness post as I\u2019m tapping things out on my phone and saving them for later.\u00a0 I sometimes (even oftentimes) do these on trips and then try and rewrite\/synthesize the stray comments into some semblance of a coherent narrative on my laptop later in the day.\u00a0 But the WiFi I\u2019m encountering at various hotels is nonexistent to perhaps even more frustrating spotty at best.\u00a0 Every time I think I have a connection and can send a photo or a note to myself to download onto my Surface tablet, well, things start going horribly, horribly wrong.<\/p>\n

The rainy season has brought out Tunisian wildflowers and swaths of green on the rocky terrain.\u00a0 That all is expected to change as we head into the desert proper, an area marked by the gates at Douz.<\/p>\n

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We are now in the Southwest of Tunisia which explains why the dates look even better here \u2013 they\u2019re exceedingly local.\u00a0 The SouthWest in fact produces over 100 varieties of dates.\u00a0 I only have a few.<\/p>\n

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Thursday is market day in Douz and it\u2019s very crowded, the hustle and bustle of trading and deals being struck, of friends meeting up and exchanging news like high schoolers at the mall in the late 1980s, is an overwhelming experience.\u00a0 Everything is for sale here \u2013 from clothes and furniture to appliances and goats.<\/p>\n

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Douz is an oasis and as I said marks the the beginning of the desert and their dunes. Mondher asks if I\u2019d be interested in riding a camel.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a universal truth: When someone asks if you want to ride a camel in the Tunisian desert, you say yes.<\/p>\n

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Mondher dressed me in a scarf to protect against the sun and blowing sand.\u00a0 He says I look like Lawrence of Arabia.\u00a0 I wish that were true.\u00a0 But I do kinda like what\u2019s happening here.\u00a0 I get to ride a white camel (\u201cvery lucky\u201d I\u2019m told repeatedly).\u00a0 His name is Sultan and is a young camel, only 4 years old.<\/p>\n

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It costs 30 dinars to ride a camel for 45 minutes.\u00a0 That\u2019s a bargain.\u00a0 My guide was a young kid named Oufichawki, Chawki for short.\u00a0 He owns 17 camels and loves the Sahara.\u00a0 As we talk on the trip, he tells me I have to share my photos with him on facebook.<\/p>\n

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Oddly my back was mostly ok on the camel ride… but when getting off I could certainly feel it and as we drive out of Douz it is tender to say the least.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s a long drive.\u00a0 Mohammed and Mondher are chatting amongst themselves occasionally asking me if I\u2019m okay.\u00a0 Ca va bien<\/em> I reply, somewhat automatically.\u00a0 I\u2019m lost in my own thoughts.\u00a0 The winds have kicked up the sand and it hovers in the air, gritty to the eyes and lungs.\u00a0 I\u2019m cursing my stupidity for stumbling on that hotel step.\u00a0 I had been so careful clambering over Ksars with uneven steps, makeshift hand holds,\u00a0 collapsed chasms that would often require a bit of a leap of faith.\u00a0\u00a0 But one wrong step late at night sends me tumbling to the ston floor, my hip and ribs bruised but hopefully not broken.<\/p>\n

The same can be said of my heart and soul.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been categorically wretched to be around of late… and perhaps far longer than that.\u00a0 I\u2019ve tried to rejuvenate my good cheer through this incredibly self-indulgent present to myself.\u00a0 There have been several hiccups but I hope at least I come out of this better than when I started.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an inherent sadness in traveling alone.\u00a0 And yet there\u2019s a sadness in keeping company but unable to be together.\u00a0 This was an adventure that I could\u2019ve postponed and rescheduled in the hopes of sharing with someone else.\u00a0 But like all attempts at schedule with anyone else, it\u2019s subject to whims and fates outside of the self.\u00a0 That\u2019s not a criticism per se but a recognition that one can wait a lifetime for two or more people\u2019s schedules to align, and if you keep waiting you might miss out.\u00a0 So there are times, in great selfishness, that you just have to choose to go alone.<\/p>\n

My biggest regret of this trip is not that I\u2019m sick or hurt or occasionally struggling with good cheer.\u00a0 Those are obviously top tier but, no, my biggest regret is that I\u2019m doing this Hanna Solo.\u00a0 I\u2019m on this adventure without someone else to share and experience and talk it through while it\u2019s happening.\u00a0 It\u2019s a common thing for me as a single guy… and so as is so often the case with runkevinrun.com, I opt to share with you, Internet.\u00a0 You who are the cause of yet only partial solution to all of modern social problems.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how many if any read this thing but it is my best effort to share with someone or something else what\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m enjoying myself despite the regrets which is certainly not nothing.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s where it kinda take a turn.\u00a0 My guides are very supportive and charming but there\u2019s an undercurrent to it all, as they seem to feel sorry for me, and try and do things to make up for me traveling alone.\u00a0 I\u2019m usually okay being alone and only get lonely or depressed about it when someone else calls it to my attention.<\/p>\n

The last time I rode a camel I took my Mom to the Outback of Australia.\u00a0 Because of snafus and problems I didn\u2019t run the Outback Marathon I was supposed to do in the Red Desert of \u201cstralia, but I got to spend some time with Mom and it was great fun.\u00a0 I thought about that while pondering my solo camel ride.\u00a0 Yeah, I was having fun alone but, yeah, it would\u2019ve been more fun with someone else.\u00a0 Maybe that\u2019s true of it all.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I find myself spiraling amidst a sore back, hip, and runny, stuffy nose into a bit of depression\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026so maybe it\u2019s good that Mohammed and Mondher are taking pity on me.\u00a0 For lunch they buy sandwiches from Abdullah Haim (I think that\u2019s how they spelled it).\u00a0 He\u2019s famous for his sandwiches and they want to treat me to a special detour surprise\u2026 maybe they take everybody there and they just want me to think I was special. \u00a0Regardless, it was nice of them to say and do it\u2026 though in my warped perspective it also was a little sad for me.<\/p>\n

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The surprise was a dune playground called Debabcha.\u00a0 It was nice but I wouldn\u2019t say it was mind-blowing.\u00a0 Maybe I\u2019m sand-jaded.<\/p>\n

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***<\/p>\n

We jumped on to the N16 to take us through the desert and through the salt lake.\u00a0 Somewhere out here Queen Amidala\u2019s Royal Spaceship landed and Quin Gon Jinn and Darth Maul dueled it out briefly.\u00a0 Where exactly?\u00a0 Could\u2019ve been anywhere honestly.\u00a0 It was a large salt lake.\u00a0 The winds had been strong all morning and continued through the afternoon.\u00a0 Sand hung in the air and visibility was low\u2026 but hopefully you\u2019ll get a sense of the scope of the salt lake.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t take a Scarif-ian style shot of the salt en masse but rest assured I checked \u2013 the ground underneath was still brown and not red.<\/p>\n

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***<\/p>\n

As we left the great Tunisian salt lake behind, we came to Sidi Bouhlel, the fabled Star Wars Canyon.<\/p>\n

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This is where R2-D2 was droid-napped by the scavenging Jawas.\u00a0 This is where Ben Kenobi rescued Luke from the marauding Sand People.\u00a0 This is where I geeked out a bit at a giant rock or two.<\/p>\n

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Quick Side Note: Mondher tells me the Raiders of the Lost Ark canyon and desert are also in Tunisia but it was too far to detour\u2026 and while I would\u2019ve loved to see the faux hole that supposedly led to the Well of the Souls, this IS the Star Wars Tour and not the Indiana Jones Tour.<\/p>\n

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***<\/p>\n

Both Mohammed and Mondher kept saying I seemed very tired.\u00a0 And I was.\u00a0 But I was having fun seeing sights and exploring.\u00a0 It\u2019s just there was a lot of driving today and a lot of me stuck in my own head since I couldn\u2019t follow the French\/Arabic conversation they were having.\u00a0 Plus hurting physically takes a toll emotionally and vice versa.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve checked into my hotel for the next two nights and the WiFi is barely usable in the reception.\u00a0 I\u2019m trying to get things uploaded as best I can.\u00a0 I had over 300 photos earmarked for yesterday\u2019s post and have been trying to make cuts and upload sections whilst working on today\u2019s prose.\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s all for the best that I can\u2019t upload en masse.\u00a0 The last thing you need is more photos of me looking goofy.<\/p>\n

Although\u2026 here’s one for the road.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was a very weird night at the Lar Homestead.\u00a0 A Chinese tour group turned up around 11:30 PM and seemingly filled the courtyard.\u00a0 They tried to enter my room as well, I guess they figured they had bought out the place.\u00a0 But that was the least of my problems sleeping.\u00a0 I fell down one […]<\/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-22833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22833","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=22833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22833\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}