Long suffering readers may remember that earlier in my trip to Tunisia I went to the regional city of Kairouan. Whilst there, I visited many of the places where Raiders of the Lost Ark was filmed back in 1981. It was a hoot to roam the streets of the city, following in the footsteps of Indiana Jones. Now in Tozeur, I had another chance to seek out Raiders’ filming locations, and to once again relive one of my favourite childhood movies.
In the film, the last scene set in ‘Cairo’ (Kairouan) has Indy and his mate Saleh smugly celebrating, having realised arch-enemy Belloq and the Nazis are digging for the Ark in the wrong spot. From there, our heroes head into the desert, with the goal of recovering the Ark from right under their adversaries’ noses…
If you leave the dusty town of Tozeur, and travel just over 20km though a chain of other dusty towns, you end up at Sidi Bouhlel Canyon, dubbed ‘Star Wars Canyon’ by tour operators. You see, it was here that Stephen Spielberg shot a couple of scenes from the original Star Wars flick: the one where the dodgy Jawas grab R2D2 to sell off later; and where Luke is attacked by the Sand People before being rescued by Ben Kenobi. Spielberg would return to the Sidi Bouhlel area four years later in 1980 to film the ‘Egyptian desert’ scenes (and the Nazi’s secret island base ‘north of Crete’) for Raiders.
I pulled up in the enormous carpark at Sidi Bouhlel, which was completely empty. I wasn’t sure whether the vast area had been created to hold visitors to the two nearby mosques during religious festivals, or tourists visiting Star Wars Canyon, or both. I parked the Tenere, swapped my riding boots for walking shoes, and headed off to see what I could find.
I’d done a bit of online research, and plugged the coordinates for various filming locations into my phone. Taking a track that ran parallel to the range, I started walking towards the area where the dig site was filmed. The landscape was striking; it was as if I had set off for a walk across Mars.
Nearing my destination, it became clear that a lot had changed since Indiana was here back in 1980. The Tunisians love a front end loader, and there seemed to have been a lot of earthworks done in the area. Furthermore, what was once the ‘dig site’ is now a date farm.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to trespass. After checking my site coordinates, they all appeared to be located on the farm. I could hear voices close by, and didn’t feel comfortable crossing fences and tramping through someone’s place.
Standing up close to the farm fence, I reckon I found one of the shooting locations. In the movie still below, arch villain Belloq is at the dig site with a couple of his German mates.
Yeah ok, so at first glance it’s pretty hard to reconcile the two, but bear with me. It’s all about the ridge in the far right.
Here’s the movie still again. I’ve upped the colour and contrast, which is why Belloq looks as if he has been to Donald Trump’s tanning salon.
And here’s my pic again. See?
Ok so it’s not particularly mind blowing, but I’m pretty sure I was in the right spot.
Feeling self-conscious about hanging around the farm’s perimeter fence, I decided to seek out a couple of iconic locations from the movie: the Well of Souls; and where the boxing match between Indy and the massive German soldier was filmed (and the aircraft with the deadly props…). Thinking they may be beyond the farm, I tried to find the least intrusive way of getting around it.
I ducked down a row of newly planted palms then took a right. The trees got thicker as I neared an irrigation channel, and I could see a bloke nearby working in the grove. I checked the mapping app, and giving the farmer a wide berth, fought my way through the thick palms.
It appeared that the Well of Souls was now being used to irrigate date palms. Emerging from the grove like a fugitive, I found a track that was heading in the direction of where the aircraft fight scene happened. Apparently.
I climbed a small hill and looked in the direction indicated by the app. More earthworks and palms. Definitely no obvious place to take off and land.
Safe to say things were not exactly going to plan. Apart from a set of hills that seemed to match, I hadn’t been able to find a single film site. It was certainly nothing like the locations in Kairouan, most of which were pretty easy to recognise. I felt deflated.
I decided to give up and head back to the carpark. Although my initial attempts to find filming locations had come up with next to nothing, I felt confident that I would find the place in ‘Star Wars Canyon’ where Indy threatened to blow up the Ark. After all, there were a bunch of geological features that would surely point to just the spot.
After checking on the bike I wandered down a path and entered the canyon. The soaring walls and rock formations were spectacular.
Following the coordinates, I made my way through the gorge until I reached the spot where Indy tells Belloq he will detonate the Ark unless Marion is released.
Looking around, there was a big boulder that looked a bit like the one that is so prominent in the scene. But…it just didn’t all add up. The boulder’s position in the canyon wasn’t right, and where was the high point that Indy looked down from with his bazooka? And where was the path along which the procession with the Ark marched?
After spending some time enjoying the canyon regardless, I decided I would find a place I could climb up and see the boulder from above. Perhaps then it would all make sense. I did, and it didn’t. The coordinates, which I had found on two separate websites, had certainly given me a bum steer*. It sure was speccy up there though.
Attempting to retrace the footsteps of Indiana Jones during the desert scenes from Raiders had turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. I had searched all afternoon and turned up only one location. Having said that, I still had fun exploring the area.
Just like the Ark in the last scene from the movie, maybe some of the desert filming locations are destined to be lost forever.
*Bum steer: Australian slang term for incorrect directions
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like In The Footsteps of Indiana Jones Part I, Part II
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