Night in Tunisia

Australian's Don't Burn

Saturday was our first real trek to the local beaches. With Shelley
and Jodie in town we couldn't pass up the opportunity to go, and
although the best beaches are in Hammamet, about 1 hour south of Tunis
by car, we figured the local beaches would be a close substitute.

Loren called our good friend Slim and asked him where the local
beaches were. He told us that we could go to La Marsa, where most of
the locals went, and that we should be able to have a good time there,
and maybe eke out a bit of space for ourselves. Loren corrected him,
here, saying where was the best TOURIST beach we could find in town.
(You see, we girls get gawked at enough having light hair, light eyes
and pale skin. The last thing we wanted was to be half naked on a
local beach, with much more of our visible difference exposed.) We
were looking for pasty white tourist skin on the beach, where we would
fit in just fine.

We were directed to Gammarth, to a club there called Dar Nawar that
had an opening to the beach front and restaurants, etcetera, in case
we got peckish. We piled into two taxis (taxis won't take more than
three by law - you'd think it was restricted to the number of seat
belts, but those don't work anyway...) and were there 15 minutes and
7.5 dinars (each) later.

The beach was great - white sand, blue sea, blue sky, brown palm beach
umbrellas, overpriced beer, vendors selling all sorts of things too.

I had put on half a bottle of suntan lotion before heading out, and
it's a good thing I did too. I am pink, pink, pink and some places
are just a little uncomfortable.

Our two guest though, who in Jodie's words are white sub-smog worms,
didn't. I think that Jodie, who had purchased a special bottle of the
precious goo, just simply forgot. But Shelley didn't because, she
says, Australian's don't burn.

Oh, don't they?

We were in the sun for 6 hours. We all burnt.

Loren went a nice deep brown-red on his shoulders.
Tiara went rosy pink on her back, chest and left hip.
Jodie sort of burnt all over - worst on her calves and back.
And Shelley looked like the devil had turned the torches of hell on her.

She couldn't lay down on any side without hurting. Her back looked
like it would glow in the dark and put of enough heat to roast a small
chicken. She had some choice things to say about it when she got her
first good look at the damage in our only mirror in the bathroom. The
string of profanity in that perfect Australian accent was enough to
set the rest of us into fits of howling, that lasted all Saturday
night and Sunday morning.

And we were sure to remind her, whenever we had the chance, that
Australians don't burn.

posted by tiaraletourneau @ 4:08 p.m.