Tunisia

Tunisia was my 53rd country in Africa and the second-to-last before completing the continent. Compared to the other countries I had visited across Africa, Tunisia felt completely different. I was shocked by how modern it was. The infrastructure was excellent, the cafés were full, and much of the capital, Tunis, had a distinctly Mediterranean atmosphere.

On my first day, I joined a walking tour of Tunis led by a guide named Riadh. He was a quirky, funny guy who always seemed to have a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. Before becoming a tour guide, he had worked as an auditor, but he told our group he hated it. “Nobody likes auditors,” he joked. “Whenever someone sees you, they know they’re about to have a bad day.” A few years earlier, he decided he’d had enough and traded spreadsheets for walking tours. Now, instead of making people’s days worse, he got to make people smile, and it was obvious he loved every minute of it.

As we wandered through Tunis, Riadh shared stories that brought the city’s history to life. Beyond the bustling streets and French colonial architecture, I was struck by how seamlessly different influences blended together. A short drive away, the blue-and-white hillside village of Sidi Bou Said overlooked the Mediterranean, with its whitewashed buildings and blue doors earning comparisons to Santorini. Nearby were the ruins of Carthage, once one of the most powerful cities in the ancient world before its destruction by Rome. Later, I also visited the quieter Roman ruins of Uthina, but nothing prepared me for El Djem. Standing inside its enormous amphitheater, one of the best-preserved Roman arenas anywhere in the world, it was easy to imagine the roar of tens of thousands of spectators who had once gathered there nearly two thousand years earlier.

As remarkable as those places were, one of my favorite parts of Tunisia had nothing to do with ancient history. A brother and sister I had known from my junior tennis days, Jordan and Britney, happened to be competing in a series of lower-level professional tournaments in the beach town of Monastir. I spent a day watching them play, catching up on life, and hearing about where tennis had taken them since we’d last crossed paths. Throughout my journey to every country, so many friends had gone out of their way to support what I was trying to accomplish. Being able to cheer them on felt like a small way of returning the encouragement so many had given me over the years.