Мой самый первый визит в Тунис My very first visit to Tunisia

The hotel was chosen by the picture in the catalog. I liked the hotel in traditional architecture, with turrets and a bridge over the pool…. called PALM GARDEN & Jokey club. I asked to name separately the services and prices for them. Everything would be fine... but the price for the transfer is $ 100. Here I was surprised, EXPENSIVE....Do they really order a taxi-limousine ?? ? The manager said that it takes almost 2 hours to get to the hotel, so the transfer is so expensive. In short, I asked to issue all the receipts, we received a package of documents and hit the road.
In euphoria, we flew to Monastir, passed the border control and came to the bus. The driver, asking whom what hotel, put the suitcases accordingly, put ours on the edge. The bus filled up, left the airport, and after driving 3 minutes, turned right, after 30 seconds. drove up to the hotel. The guide tells us: "That's it, we've arrived, unload. " We looked at each other, not expecting that it was us who were brought to the hotel, we then expected to go 2 hours, not 5 minutes. The guide took us to the reception, where they checked the voucher again and confirmed the reservation. We were issued hotel cards and the guide left, promising that our permanent guide Natasha would come to us the day after tomorrow. Naturally, when we went out onto the balcony in our room, we looked back... no lights, only a dark strip, behind which there is a road and a long concrete wall. Going out into the street, and it was already 12 at night, we wanted to understand in which direction is the sea? We moved to the gates of the hotel, because, descending, we noticed water, it was right next to the airfield runway. Therefore, we went back to where we came from... The guard at the gate was surprised that we were looking for the sea at such an hour, even thought that we were joking, but pointed in the opposite direction....and then we were surprised. Back to the building, which did not look like the one in the catalog photo... we went through the park. Suddenly, a camel's muzzle appeared from the thickets and we, like scalded ones, rushed to the illuminated paths. We decided that during the day everything would be visible and we would understand where we were... Before dawn, we were awakened by a terrible rumble, which was accompanied by strange heart-rending cries, such as neighing... Frightened, we jumped out onto the balcony and saw that the dark strip was a palm grove, apparently in it - the stable, because the horses were still neighing and there was a terrible stench. So that's what Jokey club means!! ! Further, after 100 meters, there was the same road from which our bus turned off, even further away was the same wall, and behind it was the landing strip of the airfield. Coincidentally, the chassis touched the ground just at the level of our hotel. Well, now it is clear that the rumble is the sound of aircraft engines. It turned out that starting from the predawn, about 30 planes landed, then they took off and in the evening, at about 5 o'clock, everything was the same. The poor horses were bursting twice a day from the roar of engines in their stables, 50 meters from our balcony, and we had to listen to this neighing, similar to the moans of crazy horses... every morning. For the evening session, we walked towards the sea and there rested from this horror. It should be noted that in addition to the horses, the windows also rattled, everything looked like a small earthquake. Apparently, the neighboring children were also frightened, their cries were accompanied by all these sounds, "a great influence on our rest. " Add to this the vibration that inherently affects the internal organs, as well as the intense daily emissions of jet fuel combustion products.
In the morning we had breakfast at the hotel restaurant, it was kind of exotic, because we had never been to such hotels before, and even more so in Africa. We went to look at the territory and look for the sea. Yes, we were still looking for turrets on the hull and a bridge across the pool. NOTHING!! ! The suspicion crept in that we were brought to the wrong hotel... We went to the beach, looked around. During lunch, they came to the restaurant, but they didn’t let us in, because. Our booking did not list FB, but HB. Weird! But at the reception they said that our guide would come up, and only with him they would solve this issue. We were left without lunch, the same thing happened the next day. Toward evening, this Natasha came. Firstly, she looked with bewilderment at a copy of the page in the catalog... this is of course nonsense, but it turned out that in the description the pictures were from one hotel, the description was from another, and the name... was just ours. Well, actually, the confusion was between PALM GARDEN & Jokey club and El Mouradi Skanes. We asked the guide to take us to the hotel, which we chose for services and appearance, and not for the name... But she only spread her hands, said that it was the Kyiv manager who should have recognized the appearance of the hotel in the catalog, especially since managers are taken to advertising tours. They book by the name of the hotel, not by the photo... She corrected the error with the food, and thus the hotel had to give us 2 dinners. We decided to pay off one lunch on account of continuing the reservation until the evening of the last day... and, in fact, providing lunch at the same time. Regarding the extra charge for the transfer, the guide herself was shocked and said that there is no limit to human greed, advised to demand a refund in Kyiv. Well, that's how we stayed for 2 weeks in this hotel. It turned out that we live 5 km. from the medina of Monastir, 500 m from the airport and 10 km from the medina of Sousse. We were never used to horses and the roar of planes, in fact, we were in the so-called exclusion zone, which, according to all the rules for the construction of airports, should be at least 2 km (you can’t populate this land and even graze cattle). But in Tunisia, apparently, they don’t give a damn about it... there is a coastline, which means you need to put hotels.