Through Mountains And Deserts, A Visual Journey Of Southern Tunisia

A feast for the traveler’s senses, Southern Tunisia is a place of contrasts, where the feeling of peace and solitude is as heavy as the midday heat, and the landscapes are as diverse and exciting as the traditions, cultures, and cities—each with a personality and a tale to be told. Enclosed by the Dahar mountains, Tunisia’s southern regions have flourished in almost complete isolation, retaining traces of the country’s now almost vanished Amazigh past. Also called Berbers, the Amazigh are the indigenous inhabitants of North Africa, whose culture prevailed before the Muslim quest of the seventh century and the French colonization at the end of the 19th century. Isolated yet deeply traditional, the south exerts an indefinable pull for visitors. It is a place to take in stages. Replete with remote Amazigh villages, mountain wildernesses, a mosaic of sprawling lawns and palm-studded hills, and deserts stretching to the horizon, here, nature trumps civilization.