7-1-14. Jendouba, Tunisia
While walking through the blistering ruins of Bulla Regia, I asked my informative (and, for once, English-speaking) guide why I was the only tourist at another of Tunisia’s most important archaeological sites. “Since it is Ramadan” she replied, “few Tunisians visit, because they cannot eat or drink all day. Many foreign visitors have been scared away by the revolution –and anyway, most of them come to Tunisia only for the beaches. But it is good for you, no?” I supposed it was.
Yet again, Tunisian public transportation defied my best attempts at planning. I chose the train over the bus as my mode of transport to Jendouba, the city nearest Bulla Regia, largely on the assumption that a train would be obliged to run on a set timetable. I was disabused of this notion by an unexplained hour-long delay in the grimy outskirts of Tunis (I passed the time by counting the rats running across the platform) and a series of apparently unscheduled stops near rural villages, where people boarded directly from the gravel track. The landscape was beautiful –more wheat-covered hills, higher and rockier than those at Dougga or Thuburbo – but I spent much of the ride too anxious about missing my stop to enjoy the scenery.
When the train finally arrived at Jendouba, I jumped down to the gravel (the doors opened on the side opposite the platform) and walked to the nearest street, where I discovered that Tuesday is Jendouba’s market day. Pressing through the maze of stalls and shoppers, I eventually found the bus station, and set about trying to find the bus to Bulla Regia promised by my guidebook. Over the course of the next twenty minutes, I was variously advised (in rapid French) by nearly every person in the station. Once he understood my destination (there must be twenty incorrect ways to pronounce the vowels in Bulla Regia) the station manager indicated that I should wait by the station wall for a bus that would arrive in a half-hour or so. His friend disagreed, pointing me to a different bus in the rear parking lot. The friendly driver of this bus confided in me that his route was really very impractical for someone trying to get to Bulla Regia, and advised me to just get a taxi. Walking towards the taxi stand, I was accosted again by the station manager, who pointed me to a bus stop across the street. Another conductor, hearing my destination, assured me that the next stop was the proper place – and there, at last, I came to rest, eventually boarding the right bus some twenty minutes later.
After some brief anxiety about getting off at the right stop (in an effort to moderate the heat, the other passengers had drawn all the curtains, leaving me literally in the dark), I arrived at the rocky and sunbaked site of Bulla Regia. As at Dougga and Thuburbo, I was the only visitor – the first, it would appear, for several days; the man at the ticket counter had to adjust the date wheel on his validation stamp by a few turns. I was accosted immediately by a heavily head-scarfed woman asking if I needed a guide. For once, I agreed – my guidebook had mentioned that she gave good tours, and the price was right – and fortunately I had no cause to regret the decision, since there were no signs anywhere on site.
Besides good examples of the usual Greco-Roman structures – most notably the theater and a large bath complex – Bulla Regia, uniquely, preserves a number of superb subterranean villas. In a region known for its extreme climate (the high in Jendouba today was 99; tomorrow, it will be 110), the wealthiest citizens of Bulla Regia found it expedient to dig the summer rooms of their homes into the native rock, creating elaborately decorated chambers that have survived in a remarkably pristine condition.
Although the frescoes which once adorned the walls have succumbed to two millennia of humidity and earthquakes, the mosaic floors have retained much of their beauty. A third-century masterpiece depicting the triumph of Venus, in particular, merited comparison with anything in the Bardo.
The remains above ground were less interesting, though I was rather surprised to find that the ancient spring from which the city drew its drinking water now serves as a swimming pool for local children. One of the swimmers, a boy of about twelve, asked me if I could light his cigarette.