This day we drove south into the Tataouine district in southern Tunisia. Driving there, we passed nothing but olive trees as far as the eye could see for over an hour of driving. Berbers, the indigenous north Africans, live in Tataouine along with some Arabs. Berbers live in caves in the rocks or in underground caves. They sometimes make hand-made cave dwellings. They live on the edge of the Sahara Desert. At one point during our drive there, our guide said that we were about 30 miles from the Libyan border and our guide said that the Libyan border was open, though I’m not sure why he told us that.

Our first stop in Tataouine was the small Berber village of Chenini. The original village is located on a hilltop but there is a more modern village at the bottom of the hill. Chenini was a fortified granary or grain storage facility. It was located on the hilltop to help the Berbers protect it from raiding parties. The oldest structures date back to the 12th century. Some of the buildings are still used to store grain for the modern villagers living below in the valley. There are even a few stores up there. We had a local Berber guide who told us that only the highest buildings were for storing grain and that people lived in the lower buildings.

You might recognize the name Tataouine if you’re a Star Wars fan. Of course, George Lucas changed it to Tatooine for his film series. Many scenes from the Star Wars film series were filmed here in this area. Tatooine was Luke Skywalker’s home planet on the outer rim of the galaxy in the Tatoo system and one of the three moons of Tatooine was named Chenini.

This first photo is looking up from the modern village below. Old Chenini was built between two hilltop ridges and was quite extensive. This is only a small portion of it.

The second photo is to the right of the first photo and the two together make up less than half of the ancient village.

The third photo is on our hike up to the top. You can see doors to some of the housing lower down the hill.

Vicky was going inside one of the ancient houses to check it out.

The last photo is the inside of one of the houses. There was not much to see on the insides.

This is another view of housing but higher up and closer to the grain storage area. Old Chenini was steep and rocky, so those people had to be very determined to live up there and protect their grain.

The next photo view was prominent, we were told, in Star Wars, especially the rock outcropping on the right. This photo was taken from the top of the granary area, looking out the back side of Chenini.

In the next photo, all the prior photos are above Vicky to the left. What is behind Vicky is the other half of old Chenini, which is similar to where we walked. This gives a better idea of the total size of the ancient village.

The next photo gives a better idea of the housing and roads in old Chenini but they have clearly done some restoration work.

After hiking to the top of the old village, we stopped for a cold drink. While sitting along a walkway, a group of women passed by us. They were all Tunisian school teachers. They told us that they are visiting their country to learn more about it so they can be better teachers. They were a fun group and very engaging with us.