I saw the caves on the cliffs of north Africa outside Tunis, standing on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. The sand of the cliffs was golden and smooth and sweet.
Our ship had slipped into the Gulf of Tunis on the northern tip of Tunisia and docked at a pier in Tunis in the night, so we awoke to the views of a beautiful city belonging to the Arabs and Muslims.
A bus took us along palm-lined wide avenues and tall and slender uniformed men guarding palaces at their gates.
The city was enchanting, modern and old, dark-skinned men dressed in long white gowns and turbans, and some in western and European clothes.
Buildings were white and sandy-colored stone.
There were donkeys pulling carts in the streets, and marketplaces selling nuts and dates and olives.
But the caves...
The water of the sea was a rich blue, not dark and not pale. Different.
Sun splashed light along the cliffs, making the caves black in shadows down below from where I stood, absolutely enthralled, on a high cliff.
Nomads' homes.
Some said Bedouins' homes, but did Bedouins really live there or only in the deserts of countries further west, back in 1975?
A man walked out of one of the black shadowed openings and stood there looking up at the cliffs.
His robe was snow white, his skin almost black in the hot sun.
He was young and strong and tall.
I wanted to wave.
He turned and walked back into the cave, disappearing into the shadows of a life spent wandering, a life he must have chosen, because it was what he knew.
Our ship had slipped into the Gulf of Tunis on the northern tip of Tunisia and docked at a pier in Tunis in the night, so we awoke to the views of a beautiful city belonging to the Arabs and Muslims.
A bus took us along palm-lined wide avenues and tall and slender uniformed men guarding palaces at their gates.
The city was enchanting, modern and old, dark-skinned men dressed in long white gowns and turbans, and some in western and European clothes.
Buildings were white and sandy-colored stone.
There were donkeys pulling carts in the streets, and marketplaces selling nuts and dates and olives.
But the caves...
The water of the sea was a rich blue, not dark and not pale. Different.
Sun splashed light along the cliffs, making the caves black in shadows down below from where I stood, absolutely enthralled, on a high cliff.
Nomads' homes.
Some said Bedouins' homes, but did Bedouins really live there or only in the deserts of countries further west, back in 1975?
A man walked out of one of the black shadowed openings and stood there looking up at the cliffs.
His robe was snow white, his skin almost black in the hot sun.
He was young and strong and tall.
I wanted to wave.
He turned and walked back into the cave, disappearing into the shadows of a life spent wandering, a life he must have chosen, because it was what he knew.
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