To finish off another year abroad and get a little travel-fix before we start work again we made a rather spontaneous decision to book a last minute flight to Tunisia.

We’ve never been before so I wasn’t sure what to expect but after doing some research I discovered there were blue and white medinas built beside the Mediterranean, ancient mosques and interesting Berber homes that featured in the Star Wars movies.

The flight took under 3 hours and we were transported from -2° at Gatwick to 20° in Tunisia. There was a mafia vibe amongst the taxi drivers at the airport. The bus we wanted to catch didn’t show up and when a local man offered for us to share his taxi, the other drivers went ballistic and wouldn’t let us open the car doors to get in.

We ended up sharing a taxi with a fellow Brit where we all made sure to confirm the price and destination, only for the driver to scam us and drop us in another city where he paid for us to get in a shared louage to Tunis. It was bizarre and not a great start to the country to be honest. We eventually made it to Tunis but with a severe dislike and distrust for Tunisian taxi drivers.

Because we were only in Tunisia for 10 days we were able to travel light with just our day-packs which was very freeing as we were able to hop out the louage and walk a few kilometres to our hostel. It was set out of town along a quiet road where dozens of cats were scavenging food from an over-turned rubbish bin.

We still had a couple hours of daylight left to see a bit of the city and get some dinner. As soon as we entered the medina we noticed a group of rather suspicious looking young lads which put us a little on edge, but not as much as when a young lad walked towards us while tucking a huge machete into his trousers.

We were walking through the residential area of the medina which felt like a ghost town in the late afternoon. A few people gradually appeared the further we walked, and we began to relax and feel safe. There were certain alleys lined with shops but the items for sale weren’t as appealing as in Morocco where I found it hard to resist buying everything I saw.

The medina is a UNESCO world heritage site with over 700 monuments including palaces, mosques and mausoleums. Although, we mostly stuck to the back alleys and had a peak of the city from a mosaic-covered roof.

On our stroll we found a very busy eatery to try our first Tunisian meal. The shop specialised in Lablabi, a chickpea soup served with stale bread. Interestingly we were given a bowl with two slabs of bread, and luckily I’d read online that if this happens we need to tear up the bread into small pieces and return it to the chef.

Once we took part in the making of our dinner the chap added a big ladle of chickpeas, lashings of olive oil and spicy harissa. He asked if we wanted an egg but at that very moment we saw him crack one open for someone else and a partially cooked egg slipped out the shell and looked rather translucent so we quickly said no to the offer. It was a very hearty dish; simple, spicy and filling.

Then it was time to walk back to our hostel on the other side of town. The walk was fine at night until we got to the final road which had a very abandoned feel to it. Somehow whenever we walked back at night someone would suddenly appear behind us and we’d have to take a longer route along a busier road. I’m sure it was just us being paranoid, but better to be safe.

We used Tunis as a base to explore the surrounding area and one day trip took us north for a hike. There wasn’t much information about the trail online so we were kind of winging it but first we took a taxi to the louage station. From there we headed to a town about 70km north of Tunis and then we needed to travel 5 more kilometres to the hiking trail.

Finally we were on our way and heading up a dirt track towards the top of Rafraf mountain. It wasn’t very high, only about 300m but I was definitely glad to be hiking in winter and not in the 40° summer heat. Prickly pear cacti and giant aloe vera looking plants were all along the side of the path and locals were growing lots of olive trees.

After the initial climb the path flattened off and we followed a wide ridge line with the Mediterranean Sea on either side of us. To the south of us was a huge wetland area, separated from the sea by a narrow sandbar.

The ridge was really impressive and the peninsular we were walking along got narrower towards the end, but it was too far to reach today. We got to a point where we were satisfied with the views before heading back the same way.

We had plans for the afternoon to head to Bizerte, the most northern city in Africa. It was very convenient reaching there by louage and we only had to wait five minutes before it filled up and the driver set off. It was a really scenic drive with lush green rolling hills, certainly not the sort of landscape I expected to see in Tunisia.

There was a peninsular nearby that marked the northern tip of Africa, but we were happy to skip that and focus on the sights around town. Our first stop was the marina area where pastel coloured houses with flat-roofs reflected in the water.

I didn’t have much of a plan for Bizerte, except for just strolling around which turned out to be delightful. We ended up in a fabulous labyrinth of cobbled lanes with well maintained houses painted white and blue.

We eventually ended up in the main medina which was a lot rougher on the edges with chipped paintwork, crumbling buildings and cats that looked like they’d given up and stopped cleaning their fur ten years ago.

We ended up in a lane with second hand goods for sale. On the corner was an old dentist looking chair which the resident cats used as a tiered bed.

We wondered through the fruit and veg souks, the fish stalls and the butchers, where live and strangely docile chickens slept beside feral cats. There were also second hand stalls and it was quite eye opening seeing people selling just one or two items. Other stalls had dozens of used goods laying on a sheet with some bizarre items like an empty Nescafé coffee jar, but hey, as they say – another man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Lots of people were selling tangerines so we bought a kilo for just 25p and devoured them on our journey back to Sousse.