The light is a bit weird today as there seems to be a haze in the air, which didn't clear, even as the temperature went up. But that haze of the morning seemed to clear as I dropped over the back of the hills, which made me think it was sea fret rolling in to the first uphill.
There is clearly a fair bit of money going into this area. The properties are being renovated in their traditional style and the fields and water supply are all well maintained.
At Ksar Hedada, the Star Wars village from Phantom Menace sits. But around this whole area is stunning water cut gorges through the sand and limestone.
The Canyon Zaafran has both religious, paleontology and geology interest as well as its formation process through hydrology. 
A dinosaur statue sits on a ridgeline at the end of Djebel Miteur, marking the site of multiple finds there.
I started to meander up the little roads that passed through villages and up onto small passes. At Chouamakh, I spotted a piste heding up to a col and over to Chequimi.
It was unsurfaced and a bit steep, but it went the way I wanted to head. So I turned up there. It was rough, slightly washed out and steep. Low ratio, with diff lock and 1st gear steep. The views back over the flat plain, with the hills rising steeply to the western edge all looked very dramatic in the light.
Once up to the col, there was a narrow, winding track to join tarmac at Chequimi. From there, winding tarmac followed the ridges to Matmata.
A fuel stop at New Matmata, saw my first bit of blatant dishonesty for this trip. I paid the guy with 120 dinar but got no change, the price was 110. He just walked off with a grunt. At first, I thought I'd made a mistake, but then remembered I'd counted out 140, saw it was 110 and so just handed over 120. When I called him, he pretended to have made a mistake, but was so shifty about it. Hey ho.
North of El Hamma, I crossed the eastern end of the salt plain I'd traversed a few days earlier. The first of the hills I was crossing formed the northern edge of the end of the salt pan.