With this in mind, we set off from Manchester, England on Sunday, March 22, 1998. The following is a sort of "logbook" or "diary" of the trip. Hopefully this will help to give some kind of insight into what one has to go through to obtain mineral specimens in unfamiliar countries.

Sunday, March 22, 1998

Three hour plane flight from Manchester, England to the airport in Monastir, Tunisia. To make the flight, we had to get up and on the road at 4:30 a.m. this morning. Did not get to bed until 2:00 a.m. the night before. Needless to say I was able to sleep well on the flight. Upon landing at Monastir there was a little confusion about the rental car. This was finally worked out when we met with "Freddy", the man who ran the nearby Golden Sands Hotel which evidently also offers rental cars. "Freddy" told us that we could stay in his hotel, a very fine seaside resort with good food, at the special rate of about $18(!) a night each, including meals. He told us that if we needed anything while we were in Tunisia to simply call him at the hotel, that he was "always there" and would be willing to help. "Freddy" seems to be very organized and will likely be a good ally in case we have problems during our trip. We are off to a good start!

     Off to Zaghaoun to find a hotel. We located the Hotel des Thermes just north of the city. This hotel is very strangely named, as both the water and the food here is cold, but it will prove adequate. Very tired and went to bed early tonight

Monday, March 23, 1998

     We set off early for Hammam Zriba to meet with our friends and go underground. After the traditional meal of hot, spicy Cous-cous and Coca-cola, we set off for the mine. The mine here was last worked approximately forty years ago for fluorite. It is a large complex of tunnels and adits which honeycomb both sides of a canyon situated just behind the village. Geologically this is a sedimentary replacement deposit, with much white massive barite replacing the host carbonate rocks. Veins of fluorite, in some areas very rich, cut through this barite. There is also minor aragonite and calcite. We drove into the village, parked and walked up the canyon to one of the many open adits. Once underground we made a quick stop to check out an area of potential aragonite stalactites. It looked good and we told one of our friends to work this area while we are in El Kef. From here we headed on to the large celestite pocket.

      After a quick fifteen minute underground hike we arrived at the entrance to the celestite pocket. The pocket itself is about the size of a normal sized office room. One has to crawl on hands and knees to enter, but once in, there is plenty of room to stand up and hammer away. The entire cavity is lined with chisel-shaped celestite crystals with red terminations due to iron oxide coatings. There are no other minerals present within the pocket. The air within the pocket is very hot and humid; the work is extremely difficult with only hand tools. It is especially difficult to free good clusters of celestite crystals away from the hard rock wall. The crystals, with the slightest tap of a hammer, tend to fall loose from the wall as single crystals. Good, completely undamaged clusters of celestite crystals were few and far between.

     We worked the pocket for about two or three hours. By this time we had more celestite than the four of us could pack out of the mine and down the canyon. We arranged for our friends to collect celestite during the next three days, telling them we would return on Friday and pay them for their time. A deal was made and we were off to our hotel.

     On the way back to the hotel, both Don and I discussed what would become a recurring theme throughout the week. We already have more celestite than either of us would care to pack back to England in a suitcase, with much more celestite to pick up on Friday. The inherent problem with barite is that it is extremely heavy. We need to find a shipping agent who can be trusted. After a cold shower at the hotel to clean up we decided to go to the airport in Tunis and see if we could make shipping arrangements.

     By our estimation this trip should have only taken about one and one-half hours. Unfortunately our calculations did not factor in one important denominator … driving, after soccer, is a Tunisian national sport! The driving rules in this city seem to be as follows:

a) honk your horn first as loudly as possible to get the person in front of you to move faster

b) if this doesn’t work, simply pass the car in front of you at all costs on either side of the road, honking as loudly as possible (of course) as you pass

c) one final important rule to remember is to only use your brake if it is absolutely necessary. We never know when there may be a shortage of brake pads!

     The weather has really turned bad. Cold bitter winds and rain. Still no hot water coming from the tap. Don resolves to wash only one-half (I didn’t ask which half) of his body this morning, not subjecting his whole being to the shockingly cold water. Checking in at the desk Don registers another complaint only to be told that "the water will be hot soon". We are off to explore Sidi-Amor-ben-Salem today. We first decide, as the shipping problem is still lingering, to try and call "Freddy" again. After all, he is "almost always there". The receptionist tells us that he is not in at present time but probably will be in "one half an hour" from now. We eat breakfast and try again. The receptionist once again tells us that he will be there in "one half an hour". We are beginning to wonder what is meant by "almost always there"!

     We thought we would drive a little further to the southwest and check into a mine at Bou Jeber on the Algerian border. Same story here as at Sidi-bou-Amor-Salem; nothing on the dumps to suggest any mineralization at all. The mine appeared to have been closed for a long time. There was one reasonably good and open adit but we did not explore any further.

     A final mine to check out … one at Jebel Bougrine. This is a large working mine. We talked with a miner who had just come up from underground. He knew nothing of any crystallized specimens ever being found in his mine. He gave us a small piece of massive galena ore.

     Back to El Kef in defeat. At least we now know the status of the mines in this area of the country. If we hadn’t checked these out we would always wonder! Returned to the hotel and tried to call "Freddy" again … he wasn’t in and would be back in "half and hour". Up to the room and believe or not … HOT WATER! Something today went well! Thank goodness Don is finally taking a bath!

     Had our first decent hot meal in a few days at a bar across the street from our hotel. Interesting evening and discussion here with a small party of men who had obviously been in the bar most of the day.

Thursday, March 26, 1998

     Spent the better part of today driving across the country from El Kef to Monastir. Very pretty scenery with jagged mountains giving way to lush green valleys. Everywhere you look you see small flocks of sheep with single or small groups of nomadic sheep herders. The roads, while all two lane, are in very good shape.

     Arrived at the Golden Sands Hotel shortly after 1 p.m. It is extremely windy here today. We inquired about "Freddy" and were told that he wasn’t in now but would return in "about a half an hour". We have to make shipping arrangements and time is running short. Not knowing what else to do we went to the airport at Monastir. On the way we spied a sign pointing the way to "Airport Freight". This seemed too simple to actually work. After working out of Russia, Romania, and other parts of Eastern Europe I must admit to thinking that something this easy would never work. We decided to check it out anyway and went inside to speak with the man in charge of export shipments. He told us that it would be no problem sending parcels to the United States. We mentioned that we would need to make arrangements on Saturday and asked if the office would be open. He replied, believe it or not, that he was "almost always here" and that Saturday was not a problem! Now I began to worry.

     We now needed to get together wood and nails to make boxes for the specimens. The Golden Sands Hotel is a resort on the Mediterranean Sea which caters to mostly French and German tourists. It was somewhat comical to watch the expressions upon the faces of these tourists as they walked through the hotel parking lot and chanced upon Don, hammer and saw working away, making boxes. We could only surmise that they thought that this was some kind of therapy. I can imagine the other hotel guests going home and telling their friends about their trip - "The sea was nice, the food was nice, and there was this strange Englishman in the parking lot hammering together wooden boxes". You cannot get this at every resort!

Friday, March 27, 1998

     Back to Hammam Zriba to see how much material has been collected. There was quite an amount of material, some good, some not so good. They had managed to find a few nice aragonite stalactites, but not a large quantity. There were many celestites but most of the large clusters showed damage. Will have to trim these down later at home. We packed up what we wanted and paid our friends for their time. I suspect that we doubled the total gross income for the entire village of Hammam Zriba in the first half of 1998.

     "Freddy" was actually in this afternoon! By this time however we had sorted out all of our arrangements and we really did not need his services.

Saturday, March 28, 1998

     Took our four boxes to the shipping agent. The man who told us that Saturday would not be a problem and that he was "almost always there" was, of course, absent. I remarked upon this to Don who flatly stated that he was probably off with "Freddy". In the end it did not matter as we found someone else to take care of our boxes. Had a little problem with the chief customs official but everything cleared, we paid for our freight, and our celestite was suddenly on it’s way via Tunisair to the United States. Still do not believe that this part of our work is finally over.

     It was 1:00 p.m. and we had the afternoon free! The weather had finally turned nice. Went into Monastir for lunch and a walk around the city. Built on the sea, with a 6^th century fort dominating the waterfront, Monastir is a picturesque place to spend an afternoon. Had a good night playing pool in a small local bar.

     Back to England tired but satisfied. We have shipped 160 kilos of celestite specimens; we are hand-carrying another 20 or so kilos. Hopefully the specimens will find their way to St. Louis and the trip will be profitable. Don seems very confident, but then he was confident that hot running water would be no problem once we arrived in El Kef!