On Top of the Hill

It’s Christmas Eve and I am laying in a robe on a clean bed at the Sheraton in Tunis, Tunisia. While the notion of staying at the luxury hotel at the top of the hill, is like an anathema to my idea of traveling, I am finally coming to terms with the fact that the manner in which I traverse the world with a family is drastically different from how I traveled it on my own. Gone are the lazy days of wandering foreign streets looking for images, trouble, and the perfect hole in the wall café.

As I write these words, however, my wife is peacefully reading her book and my eighteen-month old daughter is sound asleep; the only sounds are the tapping of the keys and the hotel as it settles down for the night. I would be a fool not to realize that the trade off is a fair one, more than that, it is a perfect one. To watch Kaia run around the ruins in Cartage yesterday was worth more than any solo venture I could have had.

Still, as an observer of life, photographer and writer, I sometimes still need a few hours of solo venturing to recharge the batteries and see what is up each and every alley way. And there is no place better than the Medina here in Tunis. So this afternoon, I donned my camera, hailed a cab and was off to try and capture the sunlight as it set over one of the oldest cities in the world.

I was rewarded as soon as I left the main tourist artery of the maze. I serenely roamed the cobblestone paths, searching for images, for stories, for answers.

Here are a few more shots I captured.

The pictures are simple; it is the word that takes time. It is late and I am off to watch a movie, now is not the time to write the story of Tunis. The story is a familiar one: people living their lives in varying degrees of discomfort. Separated by class, some board crowded busses and disappear into the night, while I sit in this room on the top of the hill and wonder how I could be so lucky.

I think back to the last few Christmases. Except for a quick trip home to the US last year, we have been to Vietnam, Thailand, Hawaii, Dominican Republic, South Africa, and Mozambique. Not bad for a six year run. I look forward to seeing where 2008 will take us. Remember as always: Read. Comment. Share.