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Yeah, this is one of my favorites..

Who says geeks can’t get chicks? For those who might not recognize it, this is Luke Skywalker’s home, otherwise known as the Lars Homestead.  The locals in Matmata know it as the Hotel Sidi Driss and I doubt it has quite the geek appeal that it does for us overgrown American boys. We didn’t have a chance to stay in the hotel, but we were given an after-hours tour by an enthusiastic Tunisian guide named Mohammed. And it completely rocked my Star Wars socks. Here are a couple more..

This is a traditional style of house construction in the Matmata region. It makes sense, considering how hot it gets in the summer, but it also just looks really cool. Of the many architectural styles we saw, this was by far my favorite. I can’t quite figure out whether the construction is Berber or Tuareg, and most sources are content with describing it as simply Troglodyte. This might be troglodite, a generic word for cave-dweller, or it might be troglodytae, a Red Sea Arabic tribe, which seems more accurate.

A couple more pictures while I’m on the subject:

In Episode IV, this is the sight directly outside Luke’s home. In reality, however, it is several hundred kilometers away in the middle a dry salt lake called the Chott El Jerid. It is a seriously awe-inspiring sensation to be surrounded by such a vast sea of salt. It looks like sand, but there’s a difference in the way it reflects and refracts the light. In a desert it’s possible to see inferior mirages. In a salt sea, it’s possible to see fata morganas. I was desperately hoping to see something like this. The interesting thing about a fata morgana is that once you start looking for one, you’ll see them everywhere. And when you do see something that your brain tells you can’t really be in the middle of a salt lake, you begin to wonder whether you’re seeing a fata morgana or whether you’re just seeing what you’re trying really hard to see.

When that something actually shows up in a picture, it might leave you uncertain of exactly what to think about what you saw.

This picture was taken at a maxed-out 35x optical zoom. In other words, it was really, really far away. Far away from us and far away from the road.

So that’s about all I’ve got to say about Tunisia, Star wars, or optical illusions. Later..

Tags: chott el jerid, fata morgana, star wars, tunisia, vacation

This entry was posted by iambarr on Thursday, June 18th, 2009 at 18:40 and is filed under pics, tunisia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.