Day 2

I really recommend enlisting a guide (Hamida in particular) to take you into the Chott el Gharsa where the prequel sets are located: once outside Tozeur, after about five minutes you have to take a turn into the desert, and then it is almost an hour over roads which are almost bad enough to require a four wheel drive. You should be ok with a normal car such as our rental, but we had the bad luck that a little dune had formed over the road to the pod crash site, and just as we were trying to best it, our car engine decided to quit (does this remind anyone of the falcon perchance?), and the car got stuck. But it wasn't as bad as it looks, and after I quickly filmed some more footage I helped Hamida dig our car out, and we got on our way. The roads can be a bit bumpy though: like on the road between Medenine and Matmata the day before, the car shook out of gear several times!

Should you have plans to visit these sets, you better do it fast: the desert is gaining on the set at a speed which will likely have it disappear over the course of the next two years. Some of the set pieces have already collapsed. They weren't made to last after all. Especially if you look at the set from behind, you can see how simple the construction is.

We had heard stories about the set being fenced off, and the fence and the signs to stay away are still there, but now that George Lucas has confirmed that he isn't going to come back for episode 3, there are no guards, and we could freely walk around. Outside the actual set is a construction (see the picture and quicktime VR panorama on the left) which probably served the cast and crew between takes (there is also a small toilet building not far from there).

The set itself consist of one big wide main street, with several smaller side streets. At the entrance of town is a group of moisture vaporators (see picture on the right). You realise how big they actually are when you stand next to them. Coming from the opening in the fence gate, you then turn left into the main street. Walking down this street, it's really like you're on that planet that's farthest from the bright center of the universe. It was certainly quite desolate when we were there (that was one of the very nice things about Hamida: he just stands back and gives you the time to enjoy everything).

At the far end of the main street, you'll find Watto's shop. Inside, there's even the bench that you see in the movie, which surprised me, since I thought the interior had only been a studio set in Leavesden. Maybe they put it there for episode 2 though. It also looks a lot smaller inside than what you see on film: maybe this bench was only there, so that in outside shots you see something like the studio-interior in the interior. Inside you can also see that the walls are only plastered for parts that would be on camera. Higher-up the wooden construction is clearly visible.

Leaving Watto's shop, you have a wonderfull view of the main street again:

Continuing back towards the main street entrance, and taking the second turn to the right (the street on the left in the top picture on the left), you enter the market area of Mos Espa. Many porches and canopies, and you can clearly recognise the location where Jar Jar and Sebulba first "meet" (see pictures on the right). The picture of the "magazines on location" on the intro page was taken in one of the windows here.

At the far end of the market street is another moisture vaporator. These are found everywhere around town (from left to right in the pictures below: at the market place, in front of Watto's shop, and the cluster at the main street entrance with others in the background):

Notice the usage of the Tunisian structures in the architecture of the town. Not just the sand colors, the domes, and the arcs, but also for example the support pillars outside of buildings (as in the left picture on the right), which could have been a direct copy of those found on the Anchorhead building on the isle of Jerba.

In most of the side streets you can simply walk between some builings and leave the set to look at it from the outside. The picture to the right shows the size of the set even when looking from one side street over the main street into another side street. Unfortunately, also here the desert is taking its toll, and some of the set has already collapsed: if you want to visit it, better sooner than later!

Outside the set, like at the small set, is just barren desert, with the occasional dune:

The time then came to leave for the next location. After a short trip, we arrived to the turn where our car got stuck (see the top of this page). But that didn't cause any big problems, and via a location used for the movie The English Patient we arrived at the far end of a mountain ridge, which was used to shoot some material used for the pod races.

I didn't really recognize the location, but it did provide a nice view of the ridge on the one side, and the flat salt desert on the other. It was starting to get really hot now, so we had plenty of mirages to see: the desert in the distance seemingly looking like it was covered with water which reflected mountains and even trees (fata morganas?). Such schimmerings are also seen in Phantom Menace. Look for example behind Quadinaros as his podracer fails him. It's details like this which make you go "it really is like that out there".

After the podrace crash location, we got out of the Chott el Gharsa desert, and on to the road to Nefta. A little past Nefta there are two side roads opposite each other which lead to two locations first seen in A New Hope: The Lars' exterior set, and the Grand Dune. We first took the left turn, and after a few minutes of driving, a very familiar sight emerged from the distance.

Crossing the Algeria-Nefta road again, we came upon the location that was used to shoot the scenes where Threepio wandered lost in the Tatooine desert.

It is a rather touristic place now: you can ride a camel out to the Grand Dune, and while you are doing that, the local population is all too helpfull in trying to sell you all kinds of trinkets (you can see them gang up on me in the panorama below). But although persistent, everybody is very friendly, and this is a nice oppertunity to find out what it is like to ride a camel, and enjoy a taste of being in such a grand location. Not that I recognised much from the movie, but the dunes are impressive enough by themselves.

Then it was time to start our return journey, but before we got back to Tozeur, Hamida brought is to another "location": a sort of junk yard in the city of Nefta.

This yard in a residential area of Nefta reminded us of Watto's junk yard: all kinds of loose parts and gadgets were lying around, some of which may have been used for the episode 1 (and 2?). We saw airplane engines which may have doubled as pod race engines, several weird vehicles (such as the one in the picture on the right), and some other parts that may have been used as set dressing. But lots of other stuff that certainly was not used in the movie as well, such as for example an airplane cockpit, and even a coffin.

This was the last location shown to us by our guide Hamida, and after we'd returned him to Tozeur, we started our way back to our Zarzis hotel. Fortunately, we still had some time left to revisit the location that we had to leave early the day before, and so once again we were at the foot of the Sidi Bouhlel. This time, we didn't go up past the Sidi, but made out way into the canyon itself (looking for every bit of shade we could find, since it was now around 2pm, so it was getting really warm this close to the Chott el Jerid).

After some climbing (the canyon entrance seems rockier to me than it did in A New Hope in the scene where Luke gets out of his sandspeeder while looking for Artoo), we got to the location where Artoo gets zapped by the Jawas. The path along which Artoo rolls down, and the rock behind which the Jawas hide are quite recognisable. On the right, you see the location from Artoo's point of view. The image links to a small (1.2MB) mpeg movie showing what Artoo must have seen. It explains why he let himself be zapped so easily, despite all the noise the Jawas were making: he was distracted by the girl sitting at the far end of the rock...

Then it was time to start the long road back to our hotel in Zarzis, where we arrived just before sunset. Again it was off to bed early, since there was still much to be seen on day 3 of our trip around Tunisia/Tatooine.