--- May 05,
1997---
Day three was "Landrover Day." We drove
for hours across the dried lake bed, the Chott, in order to reach
our destination of Matmata, a city in Tunisia's southern half. We
stopped along the way to hop onto camels and ride around in the
desert. But of course, in our minds the camels were transformed
into Tauntauns, our turbans and sunglasses into Hoth survival
gear...
After a few hours drive through the Chott, and having
discovered that mirages do exist and can make for a startling
sight in the desert landscape, we finally reached our destination:
the underground ("Troglodyte") Hotel Siddi Driss, which is in the
Star Wars movie the Lar's Homestead. We almost jumped out of the
Landrover before it came to a stop. David took us to the edge of
the pit, insisting that we see the hotel from above first. He
didn't have to insist a lot.
The view was breathtaking because so little had changed.
Granted, the vaporator wasn't there anymore and most of the set
dressing was gone too, but the Lucasfilm crew had not modified the
basic structure at all, so everything looked just right. We half
expected Aunt Beru to step from inside, looking for Luke.
Looking around the inside of the Lar's homestead was quite an
experience too, and upon walking into the courtyard for the first
time I couldn't resist calling out : "Luke! Luuuuuuuuuke!" We then
went on to discover the rest of the homestead, which is much
larger that what's shown in the movie.
Half of our trip had gone by - things move fast on Tatooine.
But we already had enough memories to last for two lifetimes.
Francis Lalumiere - Gold
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