This week my company, Finsoft Ltd, celebrated its 10th anniversary. For that, all employees (accompanied with either wife, husbands, boyfriends, girlfriend…) traveled to Tunisia for three days.
These days, Belgrade is murky, clouded, depressive city, thus the move to sunny beaches was a great gateaway opportunity. I personally had hellish work weeks before it (and similar would follow) so this short break was really welcome. We stayed in Melia El Mouradi hotel in Yasmine, Hammamet – a tourist resort with huge hotels. Everything is shiny and luxurious and pretty expensive. Since we arrived late at night, there was nothing to see from the bus. Thus I got glimpse of what real Tunisia is like on the way back to the airport. It reminded me a lot to south Serbia which is not very complimenting.
The lovely Mediterranean Sea and wonderful sand beaches are definitely the biggest selling point for Yasmine. This is by far the best beach I have ever been to – although I haven’t been to too many since I prefer mountains over seas. We played beach volleyball, flew the parachute and rode the banana (both driven by motor boats) and generally had a very good time.
Last night we all went to cabaret restaurant Chahrazed (I think that’s the correct spelling). Simple two-part dinner was followed by what most of us thought would be one belly dancer putting (something like) 10-minute show and that’s it. It turns out that its a whole show that would eventually last almost an hour. Frankly, I have no idea how long it lasted. I was so mesmerized by the beautiful girls that I forgot about the dinner, time and everything else. Richly designed and very colourful costumes, greatly rehearsed dancing and beautiful girls (did I already said that?) – completely captivating. When they got up on the tables in the end…let me just tell you that it’s not for the weak hearts.
Sadly, this was not the only thing that followed this dinner. Practically all of us got rather severe stomach problems. I had troubles mere 2–3 hours after the dinner was over, my sister last night (whole two days later). Some got it pretty bad (like fever-high temps), some so and so. But in general, we were all screwed. I’m most sorry that my all-night toilet party robed me completely of the swim & play experience the next day (we headed back in the evening of the next day). I’m still feeling consequences, but it does not hinder (too much) my weekend routine.
Hence – be warned – African food/water is most likely not compatible with us Europeans.
There are other things that I did not like in Tunisia and some that really pissed me off, but I have no wish to write about them now…You see, when I close my eyes I still see this lovely-skinned belly half a meter from my head. And if food poison is the price to pay for this show, I would gladly pay it again.
