Into the Desert
Because the weather forecasts for Tunis were rainy for the next few days, we decided to make a beeline for the desert. The bus was our best option for heading south, and with my shaky French, bought two tickets for Gabes. Eight hours later, with a bus stop in the middle of nowhere where our bus stopped for drinks and sweet, fig type pastries, we walked around Gabes trying to find the louage station. Louages are shared mini-van taxis and it took us about a half-hour to find the corner of the world where louages left for Matmata. We thought we would sit there for a while waiting for the louage to fill up, but within 15 minutes, we were full and we were off, shoulder to shoulder with local Tunisians.
In Matmata, we were quickly met by a guy named Mohammed. I knew that there were people who would try to find us a place to stay, and this guy seemed nice enough, so we followed him to his family's hotel. One of my goals in Tunisia was to see a troglodyte dwelling, the ancient, below-ground Berber dwellings where some of the scenes from Star Wars were filmed (Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru's moisture farm inside shots). Not only did we get to see a troglodyte dwelling, but we stayed in one at Hotel les Berberes. It was SO cool - the room was tiny and felt like we were staying in a cave, the bed was a part of the wall and floor, and oh, was it cold that night!
After getting our hotel settled, Mohammed asked us if we were planning to go further south into the desert. Inside, we were screaming YES!, but we didn't let on too quickly, or we knew he would take us for a ride with our money. 
Some haggling and negotiating later, with a few moments of being prepared to walk away, we made a deal that his tour company would take us into the desert, to Ksar Ghilene. The package deal included transportation, lodging, a camel ride (although he didn't tell us this right away), and food. Not bad -and he even said he would take us to our next destination of Douz.
That night, as we filmed the sun setting, we met a guy named Josh who we found out would be coming with us on our desert journey, which cut our cost in half. We ate dinner that night at a local restaurant/bar (no alcohol), and laughed hysterically when a local offered us something to smoke - I thought it was marijuana at first, but then realized several days later that it was flavored tobacco out of a large contraption called a Sheesha.