I noticed some kind of pattern in my traveling. Every year, I spend summer in Europe with side trips to Asia and Africa. In the fall, I start moving toward home in Colorado with stopovers along the way. This year, I did a trip to Syria from Bulgaria. Then time came to leave Europe, I went to Algeria. It was west, i.e. in the right direction. I saw a post about a tour and signed up.
After a relaxing time on the French Riviera, I flew from Nice to Algiers. Air Algérie has such bad reviews that I thought twice before flying with it. However, it was the quickest and cheapest way to get to Algeria and I bought the ticket. The plane was seriously outdated but the flight was short, only 1.5 hours, and we made it without delays or other issues.
I was going on a 2-week tour with a group of 7 other women, all Russian speaking and living outside of their countries of birth. The trip was organized by a fixer who lives in France. She never was in Algeria herself and it was her first tour to it. However, she had a lot of experience with tours to other countries and was quite popular on social media, so I decided it was okay to go.
It took a while to get our Algerian visas preapproved. The process was new to Algerians. The country only recently opened to tourism. There was much confusion about how to do the paperwork and even a visa fee. The hosting agency in Algeria finally got us visa vouchers. Theoretically, these vouchers were enough to fly. In practice, the airline staff were not familiar with them and refused to accept a voucher in lieu of an actual visa. I read horror stories online how people were denied boarding the plane. They spent hours in the airport taking to managers and their travel agencies which resulting in missing the flight.
One thing became clear after reading about others’ experience that a voucher alone was not enough to get in Algeria. Everyone said that another document with a detailed program and route was required. Once the travel agency provided a trip plan, everything went smoothly. The group arrived in Algiers with no problem. We all flew from different places. Six of us came the day before, I and one more fellow traveler on the trip start date. We got our visas on arrival. They were free because our trip plan included a stay in an oasis in the Sahara. The authorities at that time encouraged visits to the desert. I heard that this policy was canceled and a visa is now €100.
In the morning during breakfast at the hotel, I learned that there was no consensus in our group on how we should do this trip. One half of the group wanted to see as much as possible of the country. I will call them “travelers”. The other half was more interested in buying souvenirs and Instagram photo opportunities. They did not mind a few museums as long as they did not need to get up early and it was not too tiresome. I will call them “tourists”.
I joined “the travelers” and after that, the group became split four against the other four. The conflict started the day before I arrived and it was getting out of hand. Rustam, a young man from the local travel agency who was supposed to look after us, was bewildered facing several women who yelled at each other in the language that he did not understand. His life experience did not prepare him for that. Our fixer in France did little to bring order and peace. She was probably perplexed just as Rustam. Her instructions were to stop that nonsense and listen to Rustam. That was easier to say than to do.
The most touristic out of all “tourists” woman complained that it was cruel and inhumane to make us leave the hotel at 8.30 a.m.
‘Let us catch up on sleep until 10,’ she suggested.
Fortunately, even the other “tourists” thought that it was too much to ask. We managed to start our next day sightseeing as scheduled.
Our first stop was at the Royal Mausoleum of Mauretania. It is a funerary monument on the road between Cherchell and Algiers built in 3 BC to serve as the tomb for the Numidian Berber King Juba II and the Queen Cleopatra Selene II, the only daughter of Cleopatra and Mark Antony. The mausoleum was looted over the past 2 centuries and the human remains are no longer at the site.
Our “travelers” group walked all over the ruins taking photos until we felt that we had enough. It was 2 p.m. and time for lunch. We left the museum, went in search of a place to eat, and soon found a cozy restaurant. At its entrance on the counter, there were small piles of freshly caught fish of different species. None of us spoke French, let alone Arabic. We ordered our meal by pointing at the fish that we liked, they fried it for us and served with salad. We ate it with our fingers, the fish tasted great.
When we were about to finish lunch, “the tourists” came out of the museum. Their excursion took so long that there was no time left for them to eat. Rustam did not seem to be concerned with that. He told everyone to get on the bus and we drove off. Missing lunch understandably made “the tourists” grumpy. Instead of dying out, the conflict between our two groups started anew.
From Tipaza, we went to the beach. Warm water was too shallow for swimming. We splashed in it trying to make the best out of our only beach visit during the trip, then rode the bus back to Algiers for dinner and a night at the same hotel, both groups not on speaking terms anymore.
Djemila, Algeria
Wow, what a horrible experience! But the photos are marvelous: the remains of the past civilization on the background of Mediterranean Sea.
The trip was not bad. I enjoyed it but I wish it had been in a different company.