Saturdays will see a travelog featuring one of our trips to lesser known destinations with a vignette of some of our experiences of the journey.
Timeline Circa 1981. Sheelagh and I were lucky enough to visit the wonderful Algeria as it was considered safer to do so back then than now - it was a pretty wild and wonderful place but in retrospect it was probably fairly dangerous even back then!
Algeria is vast and the interior was pretty well uninhabited inland apart from the odd oasis town and trading post as most of the population were to be found in the Mediterranean coastal region including the capital Algiers.
We travelled in our ancient but reliable 1973 VW microbus in which we had taken the ferry from Naples to Tunis via Palermo and then travelled south to the Libyan border and back across the northern edges of the Sahara and into Algeria .
We crossed the Tunisian border near the village of Hazoua where crimplene suited , machine gun toting Algerian border guards were surprised to see Western Nazarenes (Christians) entering Algeria in this way but after an hour or so of form filling and guarantees of observing strict currency restrictions we entered this wonderful and mystical land. We travelled South West along satisfactory metalled roads and made our first stop in Touggourt , a pleasing bustling small town where we first understood that Algeria banned ALL imported products including even Coca Cola and Marlboro cigarettes . We were literally besieged by locals wanting to buy pretty well anything we had on board including jeans, defunct stereos, wine , a half bottle of Scotch, Marlboro - in fact anything Western! After an hour of trading we had bundles of filthy Algerian Dinar notes and a lot less clutter in the van!
It was at this first stop that to Sheelagh's dismay we learned there were no ladies lavatories in mid and southern Algeria anywhere as women didn't go out. With our new found wealth we tried to find an hotel but there weren't any so we slept in the van in the town square sleeping somewhat fitfully as it was ruddy hot and we were also worried about being robbed or even murdered in our sleep but as we were to find the Algerians , whether Arab or Berber were a quite charming and friendly lot.
The next day we travelled North towards Biskra and were glad to find a small corrugated tin shed on the deserted road which had a very ancient bottled gas geyser affair which seemed to make some sort of strong "African mud coffee" served in filthy unwashed cups . Sheelagh wisely abstained but I didn't ! It was at this point that the only other "coffee stopper" , a lorry driver , lifted his djellaba (Arab man's dress affair) and did a poo on the floor and rubbed it into the earth floor with his shoe - whether this was showing off to Westerners or normal I never did find out! Reached Biskra , refuelled and once again slept in the van having sold pretty well everything left in the van apart from our clothes and cooking gear.
The next day saw us travel westwards to Bou Saada and it was during this trip that I began to bitterly regret yesterday's coffee and despite only seeing perhaps one other car or lorry every hour or so I couldn't bring myself to poo in the open flat desert so with cheeks firmly clenched and now most definitely on "reserve valve" I spotted quite a deep depression in the sand so stopped the van , grabbed the bog roll and jumped into the depression where I found that others before me had the same idea so with much relief but now smelly feet we continued .
Approaching Bou Saada we detoured North a little to look at the Chott El Hodna a large inland salt lake which was completely dry and had just become a blinding white salt flat - it was a real wonder with all kinds of little wild flowers growing in it - 'twas well worth the detour.
Bou-Saada was a actually a truly delightful little town with vestiges of its French Colonial days still in much evidence and there appeared to be a lovely little looking hotel - probably best known as the home of Dr Timothy Leary the acid dropping advocate who coined the phrase "Turn on Tune in and Dropout" when he was draft-dodging the Viet Nam War.
It was at this point that Sheelagh pleaded "please Baggy let there be a real bed , a bath and most importantly a loo" - we had not seen a loo , shower or real bed for several days and whilst , as a bloke, I could have gone on I also quite looked forward to a clean up! So when I went into the tiny reception area and asked "Monsieur vous avez une chambre avec une salle de bain peut-etre" he responded "Oui bien sur" the look on Sheelagh's face was of pure delight . The room was antiquated but delightful with a big bed and a huge bath but sadly Sheelagh's delight was only short lived as only cold water gushed out of the enormous taps. I went downstairs to find that hot water was only available from 7.00am till 9.00am - I therefore handed a few grubby Dinars to the toothless Manuel look alike and he scuttled off - presumably to light some antiquated boiler so I returned to the room and explained it to Sheelagh who was most grateful and said she would have a catnap while it heated up.
I went downstairs had some decent coffee and a chat with the locals who could speak French and waited , noticing that the Manuel figure was carting huge saucepans around which I presumed were something to do with preparations for supper.
After about an hour "Manuel" pleaded with me to come to the room - it transpired that he had been filling Sheelagh's bath with the saucepans and had tried to get her out of the bed in the nude to get in it and found Sheelagh cowering in the corner covering her modesty with a sheet . I assured him she would get in when he left the room after his hard work and a few more grubby notes saw him scuttle off! The bath was apparently superb - I waited till the morning!
Over the next few days we travelled westwards towards to Morocco through wonderful open desert and scrub and Part Two will cover this part next week.
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