A major tourist destination of southern Tunisia is the caveman village of Matmata. But, as Reg Butler discovers, this unusual existence is more practical than one might think.

From the Matmata Hills you look down on a broad moonscape valley, pitted with craters like the target area for carpet-bombing.

There's a cluster of official buildings, a mosque minaret, the white-domed tomb of a Holy Man, scattered palm trees and innumerable paths that wind across the valley between the craters.

But this is no abandoned troglodyte colony. At mealtimes, smoke curls up from the gaping cavities. The above-ground shopping centre is thronged with Berber tribesmen haggling over eggs, peppers or bolts of cloth. The parking lot is filled with donkeys and camels. Children pour out of school, clutching their satchels, running off and then disappearing into the giant shell-holes. Plainly, the cave-dwelling community is alive and flourishing.

Construction of a Matmata cave-dwelling is simple. First you dig a pit, forty feet square and thirty deep. From twenty yards back, you construct a sloping entrance tunnel high enough for camels. This leads down to the pit floor, which forms the central courtyard.

Burrowing into the sides of the crater, you hollow out rooms. As the family grows, you dig a second level of bedrooms and storage chambers above the first, with steps hewn into the soft, easily-worked rock.

Extensions are carved out. One room leads into two or three others. Sometimes an entire new wing is added, with a communication tunnel to another courtyard. There are stables for domestic animals. Goats are kept for milk and cheese. Caves keep warm in winter, cool in summer, and are well protected against dust and sand-storms.

Bright-eyed children invite you to view their homes in return for a small tip. Each barrel-vaulted cave is whitewashed. In store rooms, Ali Baba jars are filled with olive oil. Spotlessly clean bedrooms have ornaments ranged neatly along the walls. The main living room is cool, well sheltered from the midday sun. Cupboards, niches, shelves and working surfaces are "built in" - hewn from the living rock.

Tourism brings extra income to this relic of the past. There are several below-ground hostels, restaurants and cafes, as well as the Hotel Marhala (which means "rest house").

Here, each first-floor bedroom cell is reached by shinning up a rope. For less agile guests, steps are hacked into the rock. Bedrooms are fitted with camp beds and a switch for the dangling light bulb.

The only Matmatans who don't sleep underground are the dead. They are buried in ground-level tombs, thirty feet above the subterranean mosque.

Reg Butler contributes regularly to five regional UK newspapers and has written 19 travel guide books.

Published in Travel Africa Edition Four: Summer 1998. Text is subject to Worldwide Copyright (c)