Approaching Tozeur one knows that they are returning to a tourist zone and the tourist culture long before you even saw the rugs hanging from the eaves of the curios shops cheek to jowl along main street. Just as we left the chott the adolescent boys along the roadside started getting cheekier – nothing unmanageable, just a "C" change in attitude that is pretty consistent for the last twenty kilometers to Tozeur.  If is very unfortunate because the is an otherwise very nice section with interesting sights and views.

Tozeur, the oasis occupied by man, has been around for about since about 8,000 BC.  Later is was a Raman town and still later a stop on a caravan route across the Sahara.  Now-a-days it has four parts: the old town, the commercial district, the oasis and the tourist zone. The first two are know for the distinctive brickwork, the third for the quality of its dates and the later maybe for its ostentatiousness.

The old town is comprised of low-rise buildings and narrow streets.  Unlike the new part of town, the streets are narrow enough and the walls are high enough that there is almost always a shadow to duck into to escape the intense sun.  The ambiance is made more intriguing by buildings that extend over the streets, arched porticos and the signature brick work and doors.  Many of the doors have three knockers, each with a distinctive sounds.  It is said that one is for men, one is for women and one is for children -- an early version of distinctive ring tones so that you know who is visiting.

It is very pleasant to visit the compact ATP cultural museum stuck in an old house in the oldest section of the old town – now heavily restored. It gives you a bit of an idea how house are designed: you enter into a courtyard through an entryway. The entryway always has a bend in it or the doors are skewed so that you can see directly into the living area.  Every self-respecting courtyard in Tozeur has a palm tree. Off the courtyard are the rooms; kitchen, bedrooms, bath, storage, etc. Unlike most northern architecture which looks out, the architecture here looks in. The courtyards will often have a garden and sometime statues, tiled walls, a fountain or a cage with a song bird. The rooms of the museum are now arranged as: a marriage room; a cooking, crafts and weapons room; and a history room with the 100-year-old plan for water management in the oasis. Our guide told us that the tourist hotels are consuming so much water that they are hurting the very oasis that they hope will attract tourists to their properties.

Unlike some of the traditional housing in southern Tunisia, the medina in Tozeur is still lived in.  The brick walls seem to make a good back stop for practicing some soccer.  The narrow lanes are ideal for bicycling but a bit treacherous because the most common two-wheeled vehicles are motor bikes that come racing along.  Fortunate they are load enough that you get plenty of warning of their approach.  Unfortunately they are very loud, shattering the peace and tranquility of what the Tunisians would like declared a World Heritage Site.  If I had a vote, I would make the Tozeur government ban motor vehicles in old town before it could be declared a World Heritage Site.  

One of old towns claims to fame, at least by the locals, is it has been the set for several movies, specifically Dar Trilla, the home (palace) of a former Bey (mayor under the Turkish-Ottoman Empire).  Unlike some many other locations in Tunisia they weren't Star War movies and the aren't movies I had heard of or could remember the name of.  One apparently starred Omar Sherif.

The commercial district is dominated by cafes, restaurants, date stands and curio shops.  Off to the side is the vegetable markets.  Both of the old town and commercial district are set apart by very distinctive and elegant brickwork.  There is an ongoing effort to preserver, restore and expand the presence of traditional brickwork.  The brickwork provides both  insulation and decoration. Using the end, side and face of three bricks, horizontally and vertically, there are over 700 patterns that can be made with just three bricks.  There are also some named patterns like pendent, saw, snake, stairs and camel.

While this creates a pleasant ambiance it doesn’t seem like most of the tourists make it this far.

The oasis is similar to the others but impressive by its size and general healthiness. An exception is the west end, known as the "belvedere," which now looks very unhealthy. The story has it that this is where part of Star Wars was filmed. Since then it has been half surrounded by a dozen fortress like tourist hotels. This is the "zone tourist." It may be strangling the very element that drew them here -- the oasis..

Tourism development may be a text book example of loving something to death. A dozen huge tourist fortress hotels line the western end of oasis.  Unfortunately, it takes a lot more water to keep a tourist happy than the normal citizen of Tozeur.  A consequence is the oasis is starting to show new signs of stress.  The conventional wisdom from locals is that the tourist hotels are taking to much water.

For years there has been talk in Tozeur that the tourist hotels were using an unsustainable amount of water.  In a particularly ironic twist, as the oasis turns into a desert, a golf course is being built on the edge of the oasis. While we visited in mid-afternoon the sprinklers were going around and around.  Given the mist and low humidity (below 20%) it is doubtful that much of the water was getting into the ground.  It raise doubts about whether the golf course developer is paying the real cost of water.