2/1001 L'Algérie Part 2

Hellooo again! I'm excited to take you on the second half of our trip through Algeria! What to expect?: More desert (I know you all enjoyed the first stroll in the sandy dunes of Taghit a lot), Eid al-Fitr family fest after Ramadan, a canyon in the city center and ghosts!

Here is the route, so it's easier for you to follow me:

Part 1

H: Algiers

A: Oran

B: Tlemcen

C: Taghit

Part 2

D: Timimoun

E: Ghardaïa

F: Bejaïa

G: Constantine

After the beautiful oasis of Taghit, I wanted to hop over to the next oasis, called Timimoun. It's around 400km, whereas the bus ride would take 6h and cost 6€. 

Bilingual bus ticket!

But that's too easy for Algeria! First of all, you need to find out if, where and when a bus goes - and that is subject to daily/hourly changes! Eventually I had to take a taxi at 5am for 80min (18€) to get out of the village to another village where (hopefully) a bus would leave at 7am. And on top of this, I could not reach the guesthouse that I booked in Timimoun and didn't know a) where it is and how to get there and b) if it was even open! So, how is this gonna work out???? Somehow it did! 

Although I got totally lost at the bus station and experienced 7 attempted kidnaps by taxi drivers who wanted to convince me of their "comfy" cars, in the end an old wise men made sure to put me into the right (bus) vehicle. Although, over night the departure time was mysteriously changed from 7am to 8am (thankfully not the other way round!), the bus, as well as the taxi earlier, were a lot more punctual than German trains! And like a miracle, when the bus driver dropped me off at a random place in the destination city, I eventually reached my host and she was just 1min away and immediately came to pick me up! So, all travel issues solved last minute :)

Arriving in Timimoun, the red city in the desert oasis

 I have to admit, during this trip I really enjoy a lot such long trips as well as waiting hours. It's such a luxury to have time!!! I mean, really having time!!! When I used to travel before during my holidays from work, I made sure to plan and use every minute as efficient as possible and if it ever happened that I had to wait 10min, I got stressed to fill it efficiently. Now I'm just sitting there with a big, satisfied smile, letting my thoughts float wherever they want, being wrapped in golden day dreams! This is pure luxury!

In Timimoun, it was my personal paradise! The guesthouse was super new, designed by a couple from Algiers who decided to start a new life in the desert after their retirement. It felt like a family with them! 

Enjoying a fresh pool with home made tiramisu ⬇️

Nadia would come and bring me refreshing drinks and self-made food when I was resting at the refreshing pool, surrounded by colourful Bougainville blossoms (super surreal in the middle of the desert) or when I was star gazing on the rooftop terrace just before going to sleep.

The terrace in front of my room in the morning and evening 

 They invited me for Iftar dinner, even though it wasn't really included in the price. And as you noticed, Ramadan fasting had no chance at this place with all these delicious self-made dishes the whole day long!!! 

Sweet tajine, consisting of fried fruits cooked ok honey and spices

As it's very hot during the day, in the early morning hours as well as before sunset, Francis would take me in his jeep for some tours around the region. And to my big surprise, the desert completely changed after driving 20min in no matter which direction! 

From yellow sand dunes with green oasis and picturesque old mud villages (of course with electricity connections!!), to red fortresses built on red rocks, blending into the landscape and hence hiding from the enemy, to even more impressive black stone castles that look like from a different planet in a star wars movie!

Old black sand castles 

And the best? You don't pay any entry, have amazing, lonely locations and can explore everything by yourself without being bothered by herds of other tourists like in the neighboring, more known countries.

Lost and forgotten desert villages

It's even electrified!! Proof of the excellent infrastructure in Algeria ⬆️

Historical water irrigation system: each parcel owner is attributed a certain amount of water depending on the parcel size, which is then channelled through dedicated canals to his parcel. The correct water amount is allocated and measured through wholes of different sizes. There is a dedicated Maître de l'eau who takes care of these sophsitocated systems!

My hosts also took me in the evenings to meet their friends, and I got the impression that  Timimoun is like an upper class hippie retirement joy place. Why? Here are 3 impressive stories from visiting the friends:

1. A retired lady from Algiers constructed her own mud house!! She would spend several months in India to learn about the old traditions and proven techniques how to build mud houses. Unfortunately, this technique got quite lost in Algeria, since people understandibly want to live "modern" lifes in "modern" houses made of concrete. This honestly looks super ugly and doesn't fit at all into the landscape and culture, besides it's very un-suited for these places where it's super hot in summer and cold in winter. Mud houses would just balance and compensate the extreme temperatures, while concrete intensifies it!! I was wondering why the government is not forbidding such ugly buildings - although I have to acknowledge, that all government buildings in this oasis were built according to traditional architecture designs and wonderfully blended in!!

Back to the lady, who built her own mud house. So, after coming back from India, she had a huge empty parcel of land. To get it started, she decided to camp there while doing every day some bits and pieces. Firstly building walls around the parcel - very important thing in Algeria, in order to maintain privacy and make your property kind of invisible from the outside! Over a few years, she eventually finished the whole house, including kitchen, bathroom, interior - and it is super cozy!!!! We stpped by spontaneously and she invited us over a tea with stories from her life!

Market life and (obviously) a butcher

2. That same lady used to live 6 months with the Touareg in the desert of the very south of Algeria. Unfortunately I did not have the time myself to visit the Touareg, but this is why I listened even more spellbound her experience with these nomads. First of all, they are still a Matriarchal society. This means, the women are the boss! She would own the house, asked the men to marry, organize the whole society. Whenever her husband leaves to the desert, where he might stay several months, he would "free" her, meaning that she can have any other man during his absence and even get pregnant until her original "husband" returns. Children are not considered as belonging to one man or woman, but are raised by the whole tribe in common. One further noticeable point is, that men are wearing a veil instead if women. For these men, it is a kind of turban, wrapped around the head and face, only showing the eyes. This is super useful during strong sun or sand storms in the desert. And eventually, showing their mouth, is considered very intimate! Besides the Touareg, also settled men in the desert region are wearing turbans - in a less strict manner though - together with a long kind of "dress", called Qamis, and I have to admit, it's an impressive appearance! At the one hand, very elegant with the long, proper dresses, at the other hand mysterious and wild with the turbans wrapped around the head, showing only dark, intense eyes!! Women would wear just any colour of abbaya and headscarf. Here is one more of my attempts of blending in:

3. The last evening, we were invited for tea after iftar at a friends house. Tea at 10pm? Certainly nothing we do in Europe! But well, I was curious! We drove there with the big 4×4 jeep, through sandy little alleys, around 1000 corners, through narrow lanes between high red mud walls, where you wouldn't know what's hiding behind and surrounded by palm tree gardens. And then we stopped in the middle of the oasis in front of a huuuge gate. And I swear, inside was paradise, a garden Eden!!! A huge garden with palm trees, sun flowers, roses, water fountains and all illuminated with candles and little lights. The house inside was richly decorated with traditional carvings, expensive handicrafts, carpets and paintings, with an impressive entry portal like in a castle! Out of respect for the private property, I did not take any pictures here - but I'm sure you all have a vivid and colorful imagination!

Let's jump over to famous Ghardaïa, after a normal, non-,exciting 5h bus ride! Funny city! There, on a little hill in the city center, exists a very old fortified village, surrounded by walls with only 4 entry gates. It's the village of the Mozabites, an ancient societey living as a strong, closed community according their own social rules and believes! 

The city used to be an important center of trade and still has beautiful, vivid markets!

Women dress with huge white cloths, only revealing one eye, are not allowed to marry outside, however everyone in the community is entitled to food, health, school, housing, which the community would always provide in a joint effort to everybody. And although the whole country is not touristy at all, this is where I saw the first and only time a sign in English dedicated to visitors - but no, not explaining the historical site, but rather strictly instructing that entering this village is only allowed with an authorized guide, photography of people is forbidden and that you should wear appropriate clothes covering your hair, arms and legs. I really did a huge effort and managed to follow most of the rules - but I couldn't withstand to take some secret pictures for you:

At my howr family, by the way, I was super confused about the relationships between each other. In fact, two brothers and one sister built their houses right next to the mother's house, so you could walk from door to door or even garden to garden, and living there with their families. As I told you in my last post, the relationship between adults and children is very friendly - so I ended up being super confused if people were sister, aunts, mother's, cousins, daughters.... Until today I have nooooo clue!!! And then these careful rules, that the brother of the husband would not be allowed to see the wife without headscarf! So she had dinner in another room or covered her hair! Super hard to always think of these little things!!

Learning how to make delicious Algerian bread

But honestly, I loved this lovely neighborhood! I could just walk from one house to the other, help cooking dinner, learning how to make local bread, burek, soup, cookies, hear from the children (aunts?? Sisters??) about their studies, hobbies and dreams in life or sit in the evening in the garden with the men under palm trees and stars, eat self made delicious sweets and learn how to serve a proper Algerian tea, with as much foam as possible!

Let's wrap up Algeria with two last cities: Constantine and Bejaïa

Bejaïa is situated at the north east cost of Algeria and most remarkable for its landscape, where the mountains are meeting the sea. We had amazing walks up there, with views to the city, old castles, the sea etc. 

But what I loved most, was the family time here! And yes, you've been waiting for it, finally the Ramadan ends and we're starting the Eid Al Fitr fest!! Families were preparing since days to bake all kinds of delicious cakes, cookies and sweets, buying new decoration for the house and most importantly buy new clothes for the fest! The celebrations would start with a prayer and then non-stop visiting family during the two days, exchanging news, excusing in case of difficulties and exchanging sweets.

 To be honest, it felt a bit like a Sunday coffee and cake round with relatives in Austria / Germany! We sat beautifully dressed with delicious parfumes on comfortable sofas in the living room with new, pretty decoration, the sun rays fell on the freshly polished wooden furniture, outside the windows the green gardens gave a beautiful contrast to the blue sky... I loved meeting all the relatives, seeing their houses and hearing their stories. Unfortunately my stomach highly disagreed with this marathon of ultra sweet cakes and refused to accept sugar after one day :D fortunately they had prepared a delicious couscous, which I consequently até for three consecutive days <3

Most remarkably, the kids impressed me again!! While hiking, one young boy would give me company and explain me voluntarily about the historic, Spanish castle on the hill, real estate prices, currency exchange rates or the political relations in the Ukraine war. I was speechless! And all, either in elegant french or fluent english! These children are just so well educated, friendly, supporting, respectful, independent, responsible and lovely!!!

Constantine is a city on a high plateau, south of Bejaia, and with much cooler temperatures especially during the night. It's super special in its architecture and landscape, I've never seen a city like this!! 

Besides palaces, gardens and mosques,

Imagine, that the old city center is built on a rock, surrounded by canyons around 160m high! A few old and also new bridges reach over the canyon and connect the city center to the outside. 

Especially in old times, this was very useful during times of wars and invasions, since the enemy had no other option than coming in via the bridge. 

In addition, the whole city is undermined by a labyrinth of countless tunnels, caves, basements and little paths reaching as far as down to the bottom of the canyons. Unfortunately most of them are flooded, closed or forgotten nowadays. Especially during the war of independence, and during the dark years of terror in the 90ies, many tunnels were closed with cement in order to avoid hideaways for unwanted opponents.

Just around the corner of a little coffee place in the city center 

While walking through the old city center, we would cross various tunnels and bridges, with stunning and surprising views down to the huge canyons, right between delicious ice cream and coffee shops. Since it's the city of orange trees, they use a lot of orange flower essence for cooking, baking, cosmetics, fragrances - and even to flavour the coffee! It's yammiiee, you should definitely try!

As I was lucky to have a very knowledgeable host, he took me on a little walk down in the canyon, knowing the right entry point. We crossed an old, abandoned elevator caved into the rocks that used to connect the city center with the bottom of the canyon (looked super spooky!!), as well as abandoned "tourist paths" from the times before Algerian terrorism. Such a shame it's not restored and maintained anymore, but understandable with this low amount of tourists - and also even more adventurous for me! 

If you look closely, you can even see the shapes of the buildings from the city center on top of the canyon walls

We walked besides the river, crossed under the impressive bridge high above us, passed some old tunnels, a huge natural rock arch spanning over the whole canyon and found ourselves in a remote valley deep inside the canyon with trees, flowers, the wild river and a gigantic waterfall in front of us. All just 1m away from the city center, just 160m below!! 

Since I mentioned it a few times now - Algerian terrorism took mostly part in the 90s and surprisingly, very few people were able to give me more explanations about it! As far as I heard, its root cause were extreme Islamic groups who couldn't win the elections and started acting against the government across the whole country. Eventually one president in the early 2000s was able to pay them enough or grant immunity so that the network was dissolved. Since then, there was only one sole attack a few years ago on an oil facility, but it is assumed to be completely detached from the 90ies terror organizations. Organizations such as alqaida or ISIS had no chance to settle and operate from Algeria.

Even though the country is secure and stable nowadays (except borders of course) with no more terror incidents, we still find travel warnings from Western countries on Algeria. Algerian people were very surprised and shocked when I told them about this and no one could explain me so far why these warnings are still in place!

Let's wrap it up!

As I told you in my first post about Algeria, I had really difficulties to understand and explain this country, since I found it so diverse, with endless contrasts and seeming contradictions. But a very wise, highly educated, religious and philosophic old Algerian lady finally gave me a very suitable explanation, so to say my missing piece of puzzle: "l'Algérie est un pays poly-tous!" It's a poly-everything country. Within one country, depending on the region and social circle, you find a huge range of multiple languages (french, Arabic, different Berber dialects), multiple cultures (from bedouine, via religious to modern western), multiple landscapes (sea, mountains, desert), multiple ways of dressing (remember the ghosts in Ghardaïa, turbans in the desert, black abbayas, colourful traditional clothes different to each region, western jeans without headscarf), different food, different music, different ways of loving (family focussed, career focussed..), different dances, different architecture,...

And although all the differences and varieties might be contrasts to each other, they are not contradictions, but work perfectly together with a high level of natural respect and understanding for each other.

But the one thing that keeps everybody together is "la plaisir de donner plaisir" - the joy to give joy to someone else. If indeed everyone incorporates this way of living, the initiate respect and appreciation for each other, no matter the differences, come from alone and transform seeming contradictions to perfect togetherness.

I definitely learned a lot in this country and from these people! It was a pleasure and inspiration travelling here!! See you again in the future, dear Algeria! Now, let's continue with: Yemen!!!!