For our first African Half marathon, we traveled to Tunis to run a race which is organised since 1986. The race crosses the Lake of Tunis, once a natural harbour, and finishes at the feet of the Clock Tower.
TLDR
- Not interested in the trip… take me to RACE
- I have 1 minute… take me to USEFUL INFORMATION
- Running is my excuse for traveling 😝: take me to POST TRIP
- Running is my excuse for eating 😝: take me to CARBOLOADING
- I am actually curious about the ONE BOOK
🌍 The trip 📷
We arrived in Tunis on Friday, past midnight, and we passed customs without hassle. As Spaniards, we didn’t need a visa. The first impression we got was that people here speak French fluently, and smoke more than in Europe 🤔. Groups of men were quietly smoking outside the airport.
🌴 The palm trees that we saw in the parking lot and along the highway that took us to the city center were a clear sign we were in North Africa. And the big French corporations (L’Oreal, Gillette etc) reminded us again that this used to be a French protectorate.
Funnily enough, on our way to our hotel, we drove past the Village marathon, which was decorated with “Decathlon” banners (another French brand!).
Our hotel was perfectly located, right in front of the Bab al-Bhar, a city gate which is the door to the Old Medina.
When we stepped outside our taxi, a couple of very big policemen who were patrolling in front of a tankette, greeted us with a warm “Welcome”: nice 😁
I had picked the hotel not only because of its location, but because it used to be the British Embassy. I found this “picturesque”. And picturesque the hotel was! There were colorful Qallalin titles even in the elevator!
We did our check in looking at a painted portrait of young Queen Victoria with a Tunisian flag on the counter.
This was our bathroom:
📅 The Village Marathon 🎽
We went to collect our BIBs first thing in the morning. To get there, we walked along the Avenue of France past the beautiful Cathédrale Saint Vincent de Paul. In front of it, next to a “I love Tunis” sign, there was another tankette. A lot of policemen everywhere made us feel very safe. The avenue of France turned into the big Avenue Habib Bourguiba, which also had a very French appearance, of a promenade. It was wide and with plenty of trees; in a way, it looked a little like the Champs Elysees.
We arrived at the Tunis Clock Tower where the Marathon Village was, and where the different races were going to start. There was a marathon, a semi marathon, a 5k and a kids race.
Quite empty at that hour, in the “Village” there were stands for sport products and you could even practice indoor archery 🙂.
To collect our BIBs we had to go to the COMAR building next to the “Village” (COMAR is the insurance company sponsoring the marathon). There were not many people queuing and we could sit down… in chairs resembling glass that looked super fancy, like they were out of a wedding. Also ‘fancy’ were the safety pins that we received: they were gold!!
There was a sign with banners and pictures of most of the 35 former editions… ince this year is the 36th one! And race maps with light!
We did not get a “goodies back”, or a T-shirt, which can be explained by how cheap the fee was: 20 TND, a little bit more than 6 euros.
Visiting Tunis 📷
Already armed with our BIBs, we went to visit the old Medina. And we enjoyed it a lot. It is not too big, and very local. We barely saw any tourists. This was probably explained because we were in ‘tourist low season’, but still, it was a refreshing change from other Medinas that we had visited in the past.
We also liked the fact that people are not too loud or press you to buy. You can just walk and enjoy the many goods on display.
It was delightful to get lost in the narrow streets, enjoying the colors of leather bags, silver teapots or embroidered sandals. Sit down in the stairs of the Grande Mosquée El-Zitouna, or stop to photograph one of the many unexpected painted doors which are richly decorated.
We also took a break sipping on “thé aux pignons”, tea with pinenuts, which I found delicious. It was marvelous to sit down enjoying a tea while people and many cats walked past. And the tea house we picked smelled of bougainvillea and jasmine flowers.
Carthage 🏛️
If you are in Tunis, you cannot miss the ruins of old Carthage, the ancient Phoenician city-state.
And since I am such a history nerd, I wasn’t going to!
Carthage was Rome’s enemy in the legendary Punic Wars, which took place between 264 and 146 BC.That is why Cato the elder, the Roman senator, famously said:
Carthage delenda est
Cato the elder
Which means, “Carthage must be destroyed”. The Romans eventually succeeded in destroying it, by the way… 😅
We visited a few locations:
The Punic tophet, which is actually very sad… since it was a hybrid of sanctuary and necropolis where children were sacrificed..
the Acropolis of Byrsa, where you can find the ancient quarters of the legendary leader Hannibal Barca, the general who made Rome shiver, the ancient Theatre, where nowadays they hold modern festivals:
the Residential areas, with its beautiful mosaics, and the Antonine Baths, or Baths of Antonius.
What I liked the most was walking amongst those corinthian columns and stones, imagining how they lived… with the magnificent view of the turquoise sea and the Jebel Boukornine mountain in the background.
In there you can find a map of how they originally were, which is quite curious: with facilities like a Frigidarium (cold), a Caldarium (hot) and even a “Pool to swim” 🏊, their own ancient swimming pool 😀!
Travel trip 📓: And we saw all of that, completely by ourselves, which made it very special. One could imagine the stones wisherping their old, old tales… We were very lucky, there are virtually no tourists at this time of the year! Travel in December is 👌
Sidi Bou Said
We also visited the “picturesque” (it is defined as such in most of the travel brochures) town of Sidi Bou Said. It is indeed very picture-friendly, with all buildings painted in white, and all doors and windows in a magical blue color.
We visited the Museum Dar El-Annabi as well, a typical home with Arab architecture that shows how life was here during the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. You can even visit its prayer room, which is richly decorated.
It is so nice to walk its streets seeing the beautiful view of the sea and all Tunis, while you are eating a delicious Bambalouni or relaxing in one of its cafés.
Travel trip 📓: Be warned: it is hilly, so don’t do this before the race!
🍜 Carboloading 🍝
Well, I really like dates, since having eaten very good ones on a former trip to the United Arab Emirates. During the days before the trip, everything seemed to revolve around dates. In our local supermarket we saw “Tunisian dates” on display, and, more weirdly, when reading Agatha Christie’s book “Halloween party”, I came across the following paragraph, in which there is a word play with dates as in days, and dates as in the fruit:
- May I know what you are eating? Ah, dates from Tunis. Now you are eating dates.
- That’s right, dates.
- Dates – Poirot said -. It ‘s extraordinary.
Before the race, we opted for couscous (the chicken one) because it was high on carbohydrates. We had lunch in the very good restaurant “El Ali Restaurant & Cafe”, which is situated in a beautiful building inside the Medina. The restaurant also serves other versions of couscous which are not so well known, like octopus or filled squid.
Another recommendation is the dishes with peppers and aubergines, which are very healthy. I really liked the grilled aubergines I ordered.
Another very good dish is ojja. We had the meat version, which is super suitable for after the race, the ojja with meatballs. And here there is a recipe, if you are interested trying it out at home.
Another treat you must have in Tunis is Bambalouni. It is very high in fat, but delicious. You can normally buy it on the streets for 1 TND. For us Spaniards, it tasted very much like “churros”.
For drinking, as well as the aforementioned tea with pine nuts, tea with mint or tea with mint and almonds:
And we had very good orange juices during all the trip. Orange juice is a must in here!
🏃♀️ The race 🏃♂️
Going to the start line
The race was set to start at 8am in the Clock tower, so we left our hotel at 7:30am and walked there. On our way, we asked fellow runners to take us a picture in front of the Bab al-Bahr, which at that time was only visited by pigeons. It was very nice to be able to visit this monument without the usual groups of tourists!
Some locals were walking to the start line, and some were running to warm up. We saw groups of runners going up and down Habib Bourguiba avenue, and doing some stretching exercises:
At the start line
The atmosphere was very festive, and the weather was perfect for running: cloudy and around 13 degrees of temperature.
At the start line there was a majority of men, but some groups of women were very cheerful and taking pictures in front of the Clock tower:
Many runners sported the Palestinian flag, and there were also a lot of people with Algerian flags.
At 8am the National Anthem was played, and the marathon runners started in Avenue Mohamed V.
The first 5K
The runners of the half marathon and the 5K race started at 8:10.
So we went to the start line in the middle of a heterogeneous crowd: as the different races were mixed, there were all types of runners, from semi pros to people who were going to quietly walk 5 kilometers and be done with it.
The speaker was shouting in French the countdown and we started promptly at 8:10.
The start was weird as we had to tackle groups of women who were walking from the start, and at the same time very fast runners were struggling when trying to go much faster than us.
Luckily, Avenue Mohamed V is wide, well paved and flat, so we could run comfortably.
The first 5K are run in the city because it is the same course than the 5k race. The first refreshments station was also located at 5K. It included bottles of water, sugar cubes and pieces of oranges and lemons 🍊 🍋. All very Mediterranean!
We took the “Semi marathon detour” while we saw the 5K runners finishing strong and happy.
From kilometer 5 to kilometer 13
The course for the half marathon is basically going both ways along the road that traverses the Lake of Tunis: the Route de la Goulette. This is a good option because you run 15ks on a wide and flat route which makes for comfortable running.
When we started, there were still cars going in the opposite direction, and we could witness how the traffic was cut and the organization started setting up the control lines and refreshment stations; which was quite curious.
Later, when we were at ‘our’ kilometer 9, we also saw the first runners of the half marathon going back. They were fast!
The sky was cloudy, perfect for running, but apparently it had rained the day before so we had to be a little bit cautious not to slip. In terms of the scenery, the palm trees along all the Route de la Goulette and the blue waters of the Lake of Tunis added some flavor to an otherwise quite gray route. I also liked looking at the horizon and seeing the magnificent Jebel Boukornine mountain in the background.
Curiously, the public transportation called TGM passed a couple of times. As explained in its website… “How to describe TGM? Difficult ! Indeed, it is neither a tram, nor a metro, nor a train, nor an RER. It’s a mix of each of these means of transport… and that’s what makes it so charming!”. No disrespect, but it was quite noisy and old-looking… 😉
From kilometer 13 to kilometer 20
The Lake of Tunis is a natural lagoon that once was the natural harbour to Carthage, so it was nice to run in such a historical site.
There were refreshing stations every 5k, and also stations where wet sponges were handed over. We did not use them, but it was curious to see many sponges of multiple colors in the road, like the aftermath of a party.
Something which was super weird is that in the middle of the race a truck overtook us, driving in the middle of the street, and it was a truck full of very loud barking dogs🤔. I still haven’t figured out what that was!
Also, there were ‘old looking’ signs with the distance to Tunis, something which was cool as it coincided with the kilometers left in the race!
By the way, while we were taking a video of the sign marking “1 kilometer” to Tunis, the first runner of the marathon overtook us. He was going extremely fast, despite having already run 41 kilometers!
The last kilometers passed by quite fast, as you entered Tunis again and more and more people took to the streets to cheer. In this race there was no music, or entertainers, and since most of it is run in the ‘lonely’ Route de la Goulette, I can say this is a ‘silent’ marathon.
The finish
Something I liked were the multiple flower stalls that filled the streets leading to the finish line, which is located at the feet of the Clock Tower.
You are handed over a medal, with the ribbon marking the distance and being the same color as your BIB, and then you are given more water, more sugar cubes and more oranges and lemons.
We finished happy, and while we were taking pictures of our medals, we heard the speaker going crazy as the first Tunisien was finishing the marathon. “Notre champion”, as the speaker called him, was finishing at the same time that music was playing and it was… “La Macarena!”
A singular anecdote to close our first African half marathon, which we really enjoyed.
Useful information
🏆 Tunis COMAR marathon: 5K / 21K / 42K. 36th edition in 2023.
⛰️ Difficulty: Easy. Mostly flat and run in well paved, wide roads.
🌐 Website: https://marathon.comar.tn/fr
🗓️ Normally october, but the 2023 edition took place in early December. In Tunis, Tunis, Africa.
👟 City shoes. All asphalt.
✅ Well organized. Not too crowded, frequent water stations and wide avenues.
✅ Perfect temperature (due to the time of the year) and very fast course. Good for a PB!
🏅 The organisation gives you a nice medal, the same one for all races, with the ribbon being the only difference, depending on the different distances. You are also given all kind of beverages at the end, and fresh fruit.
❌ No T-shirt, although explained by the entrance fees being very low (6 euros aprox).
Map
Post Race Trip: The Sahara Desert at Tozeur 🌴
We spent a few more days in Tunis, traveling to the south: to the Sahara desert!
We took a flight from Tunis to Tozeur to avoid the 6+ hour trip (9 hours by bus, but it only costs 20 TND!), but… we had some problems since our return flight was randomly canceled and postponed to the following day.
Travel trip 📓: Do not give for granted flight schedules when you are in Tunisia. Our departing flight from Tunis to Barcelona was also changed and later delayed, due to “Operational reasons”... 😨 So, all in all, we had problems with 3 out of our 4 flights... 😒
Despite the logistics inferno, the trip to Tozeur was well worth it. There are multiple options to explore the desert here, some including sleeping in a tent.
… a Galaxy far, far away 💫
We decided to take a day trip (there are many options, specially during high season) and see a few locations related to movies 🎬. First, the amazing salt lake Chott-El-Jerid, the largest in Tunisia, where the movie “the English patient” was shot (no matter the movie, the location is amazing and worth a visit).
Then we visited the Sidi Bouhlel Canyon, where scenes from the original Star Wars film were shot. It is spectacular!
We also visited Touzeur’s old medina, which is famous because of its bricks. In there we saw an antiques museum and we discussed with a very friendly guy about tuaregs, bedouins and how, still, nowadays, they travel to Argelia, which is a few kilometers away, to buy goods which are cheaper 😁 The old medina was built around the oasis, the first economic driver of the region; and nowadays you can find grafitis saying that “you cannot demand respect, you have to earn it”. I liked that one 🫡
And finally we got to travel to Tatooine (fun fact: George Lucas was “inspired”, let’s say, by the name of the local town Tataouine 😛).
We were very lucky because there were virtually no tourists. December is the low season, and we got to enjoy the movie locations by ourselves.
So we visited the set for Mos Espa:
And finally we got to see the famous “Luke’s farm”. We only needed to photoshop two suns in there 😂
Oasis and Canyons
The following day we visited three famous Oasis and the Mides Canyon, and it was… spectacular!
I loved the Chebika oasis, with its turquoise water (it’s warm!) and palm trees literally in the middle of rugged mountains with granite, and marble, that sport many colors:
And the amazing Midès canyon, which, according to our guide, “better than the Colorado one”… Nonetheless, and not wanting to create a controversy here, the canyon is a natural wonder that will leave you speechless:
We also visited the Tamerzan oasis,
And the Mides ones, with again, spectacular views over the canyon. As a curiosity, in the rocks close to the cliffs, you can see iron hooks, which were used when shooting the Star Wars movies.
One book
“The English Patient”, by Michael Ondaatje
I have read “The English Patient” a few times after I saw the movie back in the day. No matter how many times I read it, I always find it captivating and inspiring; the poetic prose clearly shows that Michael Ondaatje is not only a novelist but a poet.
I have picked this book because a big deal of the story takes place in the Sahara desert but because the movie was mostly shot in Tunis. In fact, the scenes that are supposed to take place in Cairo are shot in the Tunis Medina 🤩…
Summary: The nurse Hana, exhausted by death, obsessively tends to her last surviving patient. Caravaggio, the thief, tries to reimagine who he is, now that his hands are hopelessly maimed. The Indian sapper Kip searches for hidden bombs in a landscape where nothing is safe but himself. And at the center of his labyrinth lies the English patient, nameless and hideously burned, a man who is both a riddle and a provocation to his companions—and whose memories of suffering, rescue, and betrayal illuminate this book like flashes of heat lightning.
