Algeria

From the Sydney airport, the first leg on Turkish Airlines dropped us in Malaysia for a refuel and crew change. That first leg was 8 hours, I had the whole row to myself and no one sitting in front of or behind me. Bliss. The refueling side quest was supposed to be an hour but dragged to two. Upon reboarding, we returned to the same seats but unfortunately every seat was filled. During our 3 hour layover in Istanbul, we showered and enjoyed the lounge. On the flight to Algeria, I was seated next an un-washed man next to me and a woman in front of me who seemed to either have no personal boundaries or had never flown before. She put her carry on in the aisle and propped her feet on top through most of the flight, so everyone passing had to step over her legs. She regularly plopped her ponytail over the seat, obscuring my screen, at which time I promptly removed it. It’s like she had no clue. I didn’t understand why the attendants didn’t tell her to move out of the aisle. We had rented a car and finding the hotel was a challenge. By the time we arrived at the hotel, 36 hours had passed from when we left our Sydney hotel.

We didn’t want to drive in the city of Algiers, so we taxied to a central area in insane traffic to eat at a restaurant that had been recommended by our “Best food in every country” book. It was crazy hard to find and when we walked in, it was the bar part and I was the only female. When ushered into the restaurant, we were the only patrons and sadly the fare was only fair.

Friday 2/6

In the morning, we taxied to the casbah and meandered until it was coffee time. We did this at the Hotel St. George, where Eisenhower set up office during WW2. His picture hung on the wall with all other famous people who had stayed here, like Josephine Baker and Oliver Stone. Our next goal was to eat sardines at a particular restaurant but when we got there, it was closed for the religious day.

Back to our car, we left Algiers to drive into the Atlas Mountains. The road was very windy and we stopped in a town for bread and cheese. The bakery was literally crawling with yellow jackets. Shudder.

We arrived in Setif at sunset and found a Noxi hotel, which used the same font as the Moxi hotel. Kinda funny. Wandering toward dinner, we were pulled into “The king of sardines” for a plate of sardines, fish soup, and a pineapple soda.

Saturday 2/7

To kill an hour before the museum opened, we walked through a sad amusement park. The Italian taco stand was not open but the merry-go-round blared “Baby Shark” sung in Arabic. No country can escape that song. The museum was simple and had some nice mosaics. We talked with some friendly locals and set off to the Djmila Roman ruins, only to be thwarted by the traffic gods. We thought it would be a two hour trip, but 15 minutes into the drive, the off ramp became this 3-lane merge nightmare where we made no progress for 20 minutes. We decided to we’d get out of line and find an alternative route. Weirdly, we got trapped driving on the freeway because there were no exits for an hour! There were no options to turn around, exit, or anything. It felt like the twilight zone and then we understood why everyone was exiting where they did. Since we were so far out of range for the ruins, we drove on to Constantine, the city of bridges.

We stayed at a nice Marriot, complete with a bathtub that I knew I would take advantage of later. After setting off to explore Constantine, I noted that 1% of the women didn’t cover their hair so I felt self conscious but I hadn’t brought a scarf with me so I had to suck it up.

Constantine is my favorite Algerian city, with a cavernous gorge and multi-level, multi-style, and multi-aged bridges. The casbah was packed with weekend shoppers and we marveled at the natural and architectural wonders. Dinner was at the equivalent of the Madonna Inn. We peered deeply into the gorge, identifying natural bridges, collapsed trails, swarming starlings, and rushing falls.

I absolutely took advantage of the tub and asleep by 9:15 …

Sunday 2/8

…only to be awakened by room service delivering to the wrong room. Unfortunately I couldn’t go back to sleep so I took another bath at 4am. Soaking in a warm bath, I could believe myself when I would say “you are safe, you are ok.”

The Timgad Roman ruins open at 9 so we left at 6:30 for the wild ride. It turns out that lanes are a mere suggestion and everyone drove anywhere in whatever direction. Oh, and there were multitudes of unmarked speed bumps which were terrifying sometimes. We stopped at a busy shop for coffee and sweets. I liked the couscous pastry soaked in a rose/honey syrup.

The ruins were completely unmarked with no indication of where to park or where the entrance was. Once we located our destination, we bundled up in all of our warm weather gear to start the exploration. The museum had some stunning mosaics. Entering the 60mph winds and light rain, we pushed out into the ruins as I was not to be crushed by the weather gods. In the flat light, the ruins weren’t as spectacular as the ruins from previous trips but the property was massive and we could see where the excavators just gave up. After a couple hours exploring the ancient, ruined city, we left just as it started to rain in earnest.

The drive back to Constantine was just as wild but with all of the little villages filled with people, street vendors, and crazy drivers. Gas was only $.76/ gallon so everyone drove anywhere.

Back at the Marriott, we buffeted and packed up to return the car at the airport. Writing this in the back of a taxi which is driving us 4 hours to the Tunisian border.

The people were friendly, the food was middling, and the map directions caused us to recalculate more than I can count. We saw 3 other white people on this whole trip. I’m glad we came to Algeria.

Major update: we did not in fact make it to the border as planned as we entered a side quest I was not excited about.

Since we would have arrived at the border about 8pm, we were concerned about being able to get a ride to the town 12km over the border so we decided to stay in a city about one hour from the border, still inside Algeria. It was a decent size so we figured we could get a room that night and a ride in the morning. Our driver took us to a hostel where he assured us a room was available. DH2 saw the room but then the proprietor said it wasn’t available. The driver took us to a hotel but it was out of our price range.

Oh, this is a cash only country with no ATM access and we only had enough money for a cheap room.

For some reason we were then taken back to the hostel who continued to refuse to rent us a room. It came to pass that we learned that he would not rent to foreigners. After an hour of debate and driving around, we did get a room. It was located deep in the city so then the discussion centered around how we were going to get a ride to the border to catch an 8:45am train to Tunis. At this point, I was deposited in the room (no WiFi, no towels, which we later received) for DH2 to discuss with several locals for another hour. The plan was that we would hire a guy to take us all the way to the train station the next day but that we would have to leave at 4am.

Monday 2/9

I didn’t sleep much and had been awake since 2am anyway so it was easy to be ready by 4am. The hour drive to the border was uneventful but then the border crossing ordeal began. I’m so glad we hired a fixer to help us jump through all the hoops. It was quite the mystery about the many lines and forms we had to fill out. It was 40 degrees, drizzling, and windy. Oh, I was the only female and we were the only tourists. I was not fond of the scenario. Thus, we finally got to leave Algeria.