Back from a galaxy far, far away

 Been back two weeks from my R&R and it’s very much like I never left. Par for the course, I guess, but it does get tiring. Now I am planning for my home leave, which is a few short weeks in America. As usual, there are doctor appointments that need to happen. Trying to get a referral from here without going to see a primary doctor there is about as hard as taking out the Death Star, but hopefully things are lining up. Unfortunately, I got the added wallop of a toothache and it looks like I’ll have to get another crown, which will probably make my home leave more expensive than the whole trip to Star Wars land. 

Tunisia was really cool, thought. Hot, but cool. August isn’t the time to go to a desert, but I knew that in advance; I couldn’t go any other time. It was about 10-15 degrees cooler than it is in the sandbox, but it’s also – at least on the beach part – more humid.

My private group tour wasn’t all about Star Wars; basically, I saw the whole country, culture and traditional and all. Kairouan, for example, has the oldest mosque in north Africa. (And, before the tour, I discovered that Tunis has an American cemetery, the only one in Africa. Soldiers who died during the world wars are buried there. I had no idea America had cemeteries overseas).

But the Star Wars scenes were highlights, even though there’s big movie magic involved. Luke Skywalker’s house, for example, was incredibly tiny. It steps down to the ground, yes, but inside, it’s not more than 8 feet across. There is no way that Luke, Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen lived in that tiny place. Mos Epsa, one of the backdrops from the prequels, had raw wooden beams holding up the little round housing structures and the droids in the courtyard were made from wood.

 Here's Smithsonian’s take on the Mos Epsa site, which is surrounded by gorgeous dunes. We took a 4x4 out there and did some dune bashing, which was a lot of fun. The guide said there used to be another site about 5 kilometers away but has, in the 40 years since filming, has been taken over by nature.

 “It's only a short drive from the oasis of Tozeur, but the abandoned set of Mos Espa spaceport on the Chott el-Gharsa salt flat feels something like the end of the earth. Familiar landmarks of the fictional town have withstood weather and time, including the spaceport gate, podracing area, Watto’s shop and the café of famed podracer Sebulba, whom Anakin defeats to win his freedom. Moisture vaporators and other props also remain, posing a stark contrast to the desert landscape and mustard-colored set. Only the first stories of buildings were constructed for the prequels, leaving computer-generated imagery to design the rest. The crew of the prequel triology spent close to five months at the location, forging the now well-beaten road to the Nefta-Tozeur highway.” 

Some of the sites were, inexplicably, in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Once in a while, it made sense, like the area used for the pod racing in the first prequel. That site has a structure called “Camel’s Neck,” and it’s basically a dry lake of nothingness. I thought it was beautiful. We drove through another huge dry lake, too. Gosh, it was just forever of flat earth.

 We visited the Sand People’s digs, which was also used in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Sidhi Bouhlel was the place where the Sand People tried to attack Luke when Ben steps in. In Raiders, it’s the place where Indy aims the gun at the ark and the Nazis dare him to shoot it and then Indy winds up being drug under the truck.

 The Raiders scenes from Cairo also doubled as Star Wars sites. Who knew Anakin worked on his pod racer in the same place where Miriam was kidnapped? The ksars were beautiful and fascinating. Although, sadly, they’re run down and mostly vacant now, they have been in use for hundreds of years.  

 I should go back and watch the prequels again so I can try to visualize where I was, but that would mean I have to watch the prequels again. I’ve seen them once – they were horrible. But I went back and watched “The Rise of Skywalker” again, marveling at the movie making. At the final scene, Ray, shown outside Luke’s childhood home, buries the light saber in the sand. In reality, the site, smack in the middle of the dry lake, is surrounded by dirt, not sand. She wouldn’t have been able to do that.

 Tatooine doesn’t exist, but Tataouine does. Lucas and the crew set up there to film in nearby sites and liked the name so much he adopted it. We also went through a Chibika, and, although I didn’t see anything to lead me to believe he took that name, it certainly sounds like he did. The guide said “chibika” means “the place where the oasis meets the sand.”  

Another base the crews used way back then, Sidi Hotel Idriss, is still used and has a lot of memorabilia, but no souvenirs. I’m American – I was expecting commercialism everywhere, and it just didn’t exist. But that hotel – which was there the cast stayed during parts of filming – had an amazing room with 40-year-old photos and such. (None for sale.)

 The hotel part has little rooms in the courtyard and on the doors they have character names where the actors stayed. They showed me the Luke Skywalker room, where Mark Hamill crashed. It’s way out in the middle of nowhere and the rooms don’t even have bathrooms; those are down the hall.

Really, Tunisia wasn’t a bucket list location or anything; I just had a vacation to take and I didn’t want to go far. Our vacations start off in Amman, and the flight to Tunis was under 4 hours. It worked out really well. I guess the force was with me.