Blogs from Béchar, South, Algeria, Africa

I can't recall how exactly we located our new lodgings in Taghit. As I mentioned before, I was happy to entrust the logistics to the others. Apparently Mustaffa, the restaurant owner, had arranged things. We were to stay in the house of a local man a few kilometres north of the town. Like a typical desert inhabitant he had a dark complexion. He was slight of stature and it was hard to gauge from his neutral expression how pleased he was having us inhabit his home. I was unsure how much we were paying but Sofian assured me that the price was negotiated beforehand. The house was a modern structure, one of half a dozen or so on either side of a dusty street beyond which was a large expanse of dusty flat-land and the main ... read more

We jumped in the Land Cruiser and headed south through the desert and sand dunes to Timimoun. We travelled over 350 miles, but the change in scenery and culture would make you think we travelled to another country. The architecture looked nothing like Ghardaia or anywhere else we have been in Algeria. The dress was very different and did not seem to be nearly as conservative. The women do not fully cover and there certainly are not any "ghosts." The residents of Timimoun are Berbers and many have much darker skin (look more sub-Saharan). Not surprisingly, we did not run into any tourists and being an American seems to make us celebrities. We passed through several checkpoints along our journey to Timimoun, but after we passed through one checkpoint we were informed we could only continue ... read more