Frances Leung
It is a hotel praised greatly, and yet I was the only tourist in the café. The hotel café is an ancient troglodyte dwelling. It was once deserted, but recently given back to life by the movie Star War…
Tea in Hotel Sidi Driss
Continued from Moonrise on Douz
It is the café in Hotel Sidi Driss I was sitting at; it was a local cigarette I was puffing out; it was a glass of local mint tea I was drinking from. It is a hotel recommended in all guidebooks, but it is nowhere to find on the ground (as it is tugged away underground). It is a hotel praised greatly, and yet I was the only tourist in the café. The hotel café is an ancient troglodyte dwelling. It was once deserted, but recently given back to life by the movie Star War, fashionably painted up in Mediterranean blue and white, fitted with a 12-inch big TV, two clay benches and one cold drink fridge.
On the outskirt of the Sahara, the midday heat was in its high fever. Outside was quiet and dead. Inside this stone-age cave café sat a few local loafers, who were also smoking and drinking, watching TV intensely, whom I was watching absent-mindedly. It was June 2002, no place with mortals would miss the fever pitch of the World Cup. It was Brazil versus Turkey.
