Dressed for the occasion

Summer 1976, somewhere in Tunisia. I was dying for a beer but coca cola was the only thing available at the small roadside cafe where we stopped on our way to the Salt Lakes. Probably the last stop before we went into the desert. At a certain point we would have to continue by camel. I already dressed for the occasion. Fortunately the drink was served in it's original bottle. I wanted to wash my hands. I discovered what was probably the most filthy toilet in the eastern hemisphere. It made me skip lunch. I was one of the few that didn't go down with the trots next day. A few hours down the road, on the edge of the desert, we slept in the Sahara Hotel. A circle of bedouin tents inside a low wall with a gateway. In a small wooden cabin in the middle was a toilet, only one and French style but compared to the previous one more or less usable. Next to it a shower without water. It was around forty degrees Celsius that afternoon, but in the cooling evening the place was peaceful and quiet. It was a relieve to be away from the bustle of Sousse where it was impossible to navigate the souk without constantly being pulled into shops and having to face impossibly impudent shopkeepers insisting you buy or else. We had to stay another night to enable the sick to recover. The Salt Lakes were amazing. If it was only for the desert I would have revisited the country, but unorthodox ideas about hygienics and the mercantile spirit of the people kept me at the opposite shore of the Mediterranean.