The Travelers
From Left to Right

Far back row:
Neil, Mary, Erland, David, Tom, Lamin (driver)

Middle Row:
Rei, Ernest, Colin, Beverley, Steve, Sharif, Maryann, Penny, Driver

Front Row:
Flip, Will, Sue, Lynn, Gerri, Eissa, Cook, Cook’s assistant, Muhammad (driver)

The Trip
16 days & 15 nights
Saturday 25 March through Sunday 9 April 2006

In Algeria - Saturday 25 March through Monday 27 March
In Niger - Monday 27 March through Wednesday 5 April
In Algeria - Wednesday 5 April through Sunday 9 April

Day 0
Saturday 25 March 2006

Departure from Paris Orly set for 10PM. LOTS or European types around, can’t really tell who is on THE trip, except for Sue & Will, (Mom & 3 year old son who are English, but sound like Americans), whom I’ve met at the check in desk earlier.

On the plane it’s the same story – almost the ENTIRE flight is Europeans, a lot of French in particular. I had expected at least half to be “locals” - given the remote destination…

We arrive at 2AM or so on Sunday, to a not very organized, small, cramped, and hot little building, (like Khartoum), to process the hundreds of European passengers just arrived. Tricky declaration form for currency and valuables, many people get caught declaring their binoculars or GPSs, and have them confiscated.

Takes a while to find the guide, who is very laid back and not very communicative. Supposed to have been a guide traveling on the flight with us from Paris, but he was pulled out at the last minute. After a couple of hours, most everyone has cleared through, I’ve connected with the guide again, and I begin to meet some of my fellow travelers.

First off: Colin, (An English guy from Texas who turned out to be an extremely well traveled “oily,” and Maryann from Oregon, whom we shortly learned in no uncertain terms, are NOT related, nor traveling together; though they did spend the day together in Paris. Hmm? Also, Maryann makes it clear that she is NOT from Portland!

Erland, (though it took me days to find this out as I thought he told me his name was Alan), is from Sweden and seems like an ok guy, but doesn’t say much. He’s a recently divorced editor for a Swedish newspaper and used to live in Botswana. We learned later that he is very conscious of his inadequate English, but he sounded fine to us. Later that night, at our accommodation for the night, I meet the rest.

Rei, a Japanese guy from San Diego, (soon to be known as “Crazy Rei,” and always the life of the party for the trip), is a ceramics engineer and a former astronaut trainee. Lynn & Ernest from Malaysia, an air industry doctor & pilot and his spunky wife. They seem to be really into Harleys and long long overland trips. Gerri & David from Northern England, a know-it-all doctor who looks like Dumbledoor and his wife: a former nurse who tries to reel him in when ever she can.

We’re the first car off for the 45 minute drive from the airport to Djanet. About halfway there, submerged in a terribly dark, moonless night, the headlights go out and refuse to come back on. No street lights, no reflective strips on the road, no reflectors, all on a windey road through the desert with nothing and no one anywhere near. No other traffic to follow, we stumble along at a slow pace, but a bit faster than everyone is comfortable with in the dark, with only the hazard lights blinking to give us an inkling of where to go.

We zoom past the hotel with no explanation and are deposited at what is later called a “hostel,” but can really only accurately be described as a series of garages. Scrappy store rooms with some ratty beds thrown inside, open festering common unisex toilet and shower room, all “managed” by a couple of guys that give me their own half drunken water bottle and used glass when I ask for water for the night for my contacts, since the sinks in the bathroom look so dodgy!

NOT a pleasant experience; as David aptly described at the time; “A stinking hole!” It’s after 5AM and we’re tired, and they’ve left us with no one and no explanation, so we just crash.

Day 1
Sunday 26 March 2006

Collected at 8AM to go over to the “real” hotel for breakfast where we meet the rest of the group, most of whom had stayed there that night in relative comfort. (We heard later that this hotel is owned by Eissa, our guide and “handler” for the rest of the trip, and it is managed by his little brother Malik). This is not necessarily an endorsement! It was however, the hotel that we had bypassed the night before, express delivered to our luxurious “hostel” accommodation, . . . NOT.

We meet Eissa, get some Dinars from him, learn “a little bit” about the trip ahead and get ready to wait. Wait around for an hour or two before all assembling in the vehicles and heading into Djanet town proper. Here we have an hour or two to walk around the town; a 10 minute activity at most, but we are all new to the trip so we dutifully tromp around and check things out.

Bought some postcards, saw a poster for the eclipse, but not much else going on in this small sleepy town. Little did I know at the time that this would be the most sophisticated and bustling “metropolis” that I would see for all of the next two weeks!

Most of us ended up at the cars not too long after, hanging out, waiting for the drivers to return.

All provisioned up, we drive off into the desert. I’m in a car driven by Muhammad, (who turns out to be one of the best drivers of the lot), and Penny, Tom & Mary as passengers. Penny claims to be a lawyer, but in the army, and stationed in Belfast; (we surmise later in the trip, after her late-night liaisons with the locals, that she is probably a spook). Tom & Mary are a nice couple from Colorado in their early 50’s. He’s a mountain climber and she’s a marketing person. They seem pleasant, if not too talky.

It strikes me early on that I should record the different types of desert that we encounter, since in the first few hours, there are already several completely different textures and landscapes.

I start my log on this basis, not knowing that it will grow into a broader, more all-encompassing, and colourful account as the days pass.

After a while we stop for lunch. A very strong wind, (some would already say sandstorm), has blown up, so we coral the cars together in a square and string up a camel leather tent cover between them. What will soon become very familiar fare arrives after an hour or so of waiting; (we did a lot of this in the first few days of the trip!) Salad, lettuce, corn, beets, cucumbers, etc and the ever-present baguettes.

After lunch, we drive for the rest of the afternoon, covering three distinctly different types of desert.

- Golden coloured sand, (like Sossussvlei or Dubai), with large, (with what look like water smoothed), clumps of rocks piled up periodically, (like Sardinia).

- Grey flat hard sand pack, with small clumps of low crop desert grass and craggy mountains in the distance, (like Mauritius).

- Flat pack, medium tan coloured sand, not grey and not orange, but with a texture like heavy water colour paper.

We arrive at our first campsite in the dunes, beautiful clean sand and perfectly formed dunes; very magical. After some discussion, we figure out how to set up the tents and I manage mine with Erland’s help. Some people vow to sleep under the stars on air mattresses. To me this seems far too risky, with who-knows-what bugs, or whatever may be falling out of the sky – so I opt for a tent. I don’t put the fly cover on this night however, thinking it was a rain guard, and come 4AM, I will regret it, as it turns bitterly cold in the wee hours.

This night before dinner I actually walk around the camp with no shoes! (For those of you that know me well, you will know that this is a major accomplishment).

It’s a fantastically clear night and everyone hangs about looking at the stars during the long wait for dinner to be ready after darkness falls. Would have spent even more time doing so, had we known that this and the next night would be the best nights of the entire trip – very clear, (no haze like in subsequent nights), and no moonlight to spoil the view.

We have a few cookies and crackers to keep our hunger at bay, but by the time the first course of dinner comes at 10PM, most people are ready for bed. Few stay for the second course, (as will become only too familiar in the next two weeks: first “soup,” then “stew” – sometimes there’s not much difference).

Even with Rei’s enthusiastic shouting: “It’s coming, it’s coming, it’s finally coming!” – not many of us stick around to find out, exhausted after the day’s driving.

It’s become a bit cold, and very windy - definitely jacket weather. No campfire tonight, just all of us huddled around the single ceremonial folding table.

Day 2
Monday 27 March 2006

Breakfast of crunchy French bread with canned fig jam, then packing the cars and we’re off. I’m in the same car with Muhammad and Penny, but Tom & Mary have disappeared. They’ve moved to another car with more room, as he was complaining about cramped legs yesterday, (he’s very tall). So it’s a nice roomy ride for just the two of us in the morning.

In the early hours of driving before we reach the Niger border the desert sand is the same as the previous evening’s approach.

We arrive at a nondescript point in the middle of a flat, sandy and otherwise featureless desert that we are told is the border with Niger. (Steve’s GPS says otherwise, but we will humor our handlers for the moment). The spot is marked, (quick – don’t miss it!), with a 55 gallon drum, partially filled with sand and mysteriously stenciled with the following message:

INSL – 1A / L – 15

As these characters are cut through the metal, with what one would imagine to be some considerable welding torch effort, and perfectly encircling the circumference of the drum, we cannot determine where the exact beginning and ending of the inscription is. Alas, it would seem that this will remain a mystery as we are shortly on our way, entering the country and making our way to the army’s border post, further into the country.

The army fort and border outpost is located at a small rocky outcrop which serves to provide a watchtower, (for some jumpy guy who doesn’t like photos), and also serves to hide the rubbish and disheveled container style barracks of the 30 or so officers stationed there. The ground is densely littered with sardine tins in various states of sandblasting by the wind. There must be years worth of these things; in some places walking on the crunchy metal in the sand is like a fragile beach covered in shells. This is all hidden behind the rocks, where one is not supposed to venture……

The small building that we do see, doubles as our lunch and rest stop for the day, where we shelter to partake of our usual salad, cucumbers, tomatoes, eggs, beets, corn, maybe some tuna fish, etc., and of course the French bread: “Le Pain!”

Luckily the time we need to take over lunch nicely coincides with the time that Eissa needs to call his friend in the capital Niamey to have the hitherto unknown EUR150 “Eclipse Tax” reduced down to EUR15 and made payable at some later date, so that we can be on our way without further delay.

Maryann joins our car in the afternoon, and I no longer have the luxurious “daybedding” back seat. Her prime concern seems to be that she has picked the side of the car that has a stuck window that won’t open. This is when the Ipod comes in real handy – to create your own environmental ambiance, if the one you find yourself in just won’t do!

Today we encounter another five different types of desert:

- After the Niger border crossing, the sand becomes wide swaths, (2 to 5 meters), of loose black gravel in waves spanning across our path.

- Then there is completely flat hard pack sand, no horizon visible, just endlessly falling away and many mirages of water pools in the distance on all sides.

- Plates of shale, looking like remnants of a black lava flow covered in deep camel coloured loose sand and loose black sharp fragments.

- Next there is a section of bright white fine sand lightly laid/dusted over orange/deep camel coloured hard pack.

- Finally there is a long section of endless coarse beach sand, (like Lake Michigan’s shores), in light beige that feels like it should be moist and looks like we’re plowing through a light snowfall. It is in this area that we are “leading the pack” and there are no tracks ahead of us and no markers to point which way we should be going. Our driver just intuitively forges ahead at top speed of 110km/hour or so. It’s like being in a boat, with sand instead of sea spray in your face and endlessly moving towards a horizon with no tracks in front of you.

Some time later, we arrive at Seguadine – the first town we’ve seen since Djanet. There are many children there - eager to see and play with us, but they’re constantly being chased away by their teacher with a long stick who whips them mercilessly.

Some of the kids break away and manage to ditch their teacher to show us the way to the old (mostly) collapsed mud fort, 5 minutes walk into the town, which a few of us climb up and inside.

A few of the girls wrote their names in my notebook: Hadiza Atta, Baucar Isssa, Tehouma, of the Atta Rhissa Classe of Seguadine. I took a lot of video of them and entertained them with the “turn around” feature of the camera, for the first time on this trip. VERY popular!

Seguadine seems like a real cowboy town with a wide sandy street lined with provision shops; a few with refrigerators powered by diesel generators. It’s obviously a truck stop of some sort. I bought a couple of strawberry sodas, 500CFA each, the first cold drinks in days, and gave the last half to the kids.

We’re not long here, so soon on our way again. It’s late afternoon by now and one of the drivers lands in a patch of very soft sand and gets stuck. After half an hour of pushing and maneuvering, he’s out, but it’s so late, we decide to stay there for the night.

Definitely not as nice as the night before, this place is just a barren rocky plain; very windy; so I set up tent quickly. So much sand in my contacts and tired from the day, so I collapsed until after dinner when the others got worried about me enough to start yelling for me.

Surprisingly, it’s macaroni & cheese for dinner and the first taste of Algerian boxed wine, with bottled whisky for those desirous of harder stuff.!

We have a roaring campfire tonight which makes up for the lack of scenic-ness in the campsite, and Eissa brings out his hubble bubble to while away the evening hours.

Day 3
Tuesday 28 March 2006

This was a horrible site as far as toilet-ing goes! It’s so flat and featureless, that there’s no where to go, even after walking miles and miles. If you’ve forgotten to do your business at night, like me, then you’re on exhibition to anyone that cares to look your way. Oh well….

Breakfast around the table with Le Pain and tinned fig jam again as usual.

I switch cars today, to one driven by Malik, Eissa’s little brother as the daredevil driver, Colin and Erland. It’s a car that has a working cigarette lighter! – so I can charge my video batteries. This, with my new whiz bang “inverter” – something that I’d never heard of before, but had glimpsed at an electrics shop in Sim Lim Tower before the trip and brought along.

It plugs into the cig lighter and provides normal mains power for your appliances, so you can plug in all those various battery chargers, etc. Unfortunately mine didn’t last the day. By late afternoon it was permanently on red light, perhaps burnt out from too heavy a load or too much heat. Later in the trip I would have to beg to borrow time on Neil’s, which thankfully still worked all the way through.

We arrive at the 700 year old derelict mud castle fortress city near DJado after a short drive. It’s a beautiful site, not dissimilar to One’s first impression of Ouarzazate, but much more luxuriant, nestled in an oasis of palms and nearby large fresh water springs. There are a few mosquitoes in the lower reaches, but they don’t make it up to the fortress in the blazing heat.

We begin our climb up into it, with little guidance other than intuition, others having dispersed to other parts. Eissa, our supposed guide, is missing as usual. The bottom reaches are very sandy with drifts obscuring some of the lower buildings. Upwards, it becomes rocky in many areas, and this seems to be the foundation that the mud walls have been built on.

After our exploration, we drove off a short ways to the town of Dirkou. We walked around town, quite large by comparison to what we’d seen so far, (but still just a village); still lots of kids asking for cadeaux, bic, etc. There was a small mud mosque in the center of town, reminiscent of the “evil” mosque half way up the Niger river from Mopti to Timbuktu in Mali.

Not much else to see in the town, other than a lot of mud brick buildings that seem mostly to be residences. If there are any shops or businesses, they don’t seem to ever be open.

We had lunch at an encampement with a pet gazelle in the courtyard. Nice and cool and several of us crashed out on straw mats in the shade after lunch for a well deserved nap.

After seeing the vast quantities of kids all along the way, a few of us kick ourselves for not having thought of bringing a box of hundreds of eclipse mylar safety glasses to distribute. We fear that there will accidents, due to the lack of education and complacence of the authorities. This is particularly so in this town, where Eissa tells us that he spoke with the Chief and he didn’t seem to care, shrugging it off.

Another full afternoon of driving to reach our campsite in the dunes outside of Dirkou, halfway to Bilma. Atop this flat top dune, the highest in the area, with nothing to see but other dunes to all horizons, will be our eclipse viewing spot tomorrow.

Miraculously there was no wind tonight! But the sky has turned hazy with wisps of clouds and obscuring the perfect star viewing we had a few nights ago. We hope it won’t spoil the eclipse.

To celebrate, I’m not sure what, (maybe having made it this far alive), Eissa has bought lots of boxed wine and cold Niger beers from Dirkou. A few of us who have gravitated towards each other in the past few days, (you know: the “cool” people), take advantage of this rare opportunity, and ENJOY the evening around the campfire.

Perhaps I have enjoyed too much, or made a tactical error in pitching my tent in a flat valley some 100 meters off below the dune. After our nightcaps are finished, I lurch off in a slightly wrong direction from the top of the dune and spend the next 30 minutes trying to find the tent in the dark! Mercifully I don’t have to sleep face down in the sand tonight! I enjoy a great night’s sleep here and realize that I have not been dreaming any of the nights since the trip started.

Day 4
Wednesday 29 March 2006
Eclipse day

Everyone is up early with great expectations for the eclipse in the late morning. It’s still very hazy, but it seems to be burning off slowly. Mary, the newly christened Eclipse Queen, (as of last night – we don’t know why!), promised us that it will all turn out ok!

In fact it DOES, with a good showing as the moon passes over the sun from right to left, and a brilliant diamond ring at onset and departure. I’d set up some white paper to check for the flashing black and white stripes, but no luck this time; I guess it’s still too hazy. (I recall that they were very prominent in Zambia).

The beauty of the event is that we’re all alone on the top of our own dune. There are no other geeks or astral-planers around anywhere. There appear to be some other people and vehicles on a dune far far away, but we can just barely make them out.

This is a relief, because just before sunrise and as we were having breakfast earlier, we begin to first “hear” and then “see” numerous 4WD vehicles coming over the dunes from the direction of Dirkou, and we think we’ll be inundated shortly. They all pass off into the distance however, and our sanctity is maintained.

The corona of the eclipse is unusual, and as usual, is not captured faithfully in any photographs. It appears mainly on each SIDE of the sun, left and right, with little or no prominences on the top and bottom. We have no telescope this time, so we cannot check for real fiery prominences, like those seen in 2001 in Zambia, but it seems that details would be obscured by the unclear atmosphere anyway.

During totality it became somewhat cold and surprisingly very windy; seems the wind always comes up at a change of temperature in the desert. No animals to observe their disturbed behavior here, but it is a serene moment, unique in all my eclipse viewing experience.

After the eclipse we hang about for a bit, have some lunch and prepare for the afternoon’s driving further into the desert. Having been not so happy with Malik’s driving yesterday, I switch cars to ride with Sue and Will and Beverley. Beverley is a South African nurse, living in London, but wishes she could still live in Brighton, and is hopelessly enamored with Eissa, uh er - I mean Africa. (We learn later that she is planning to have two kids within the next year, so presumably is in the market for a husband now!)

Lamin is our driver, a safe, slow, steady chap; (this will be our undoing shortly, as we are ALWAYS the ones to get stuck in the sand, because he waits too long to shift and doesn’t “power through” these soft stretches). We become very familiar with extraction techniques and sand ladders over the next few days.

We drive into Bilma for a short stay at a car repair garage, water/petrol top up station and scrappy outskirts of town. Colin is very upset, as Bilma was written up in our itinerary as a picturesque, atmospheric, and/or historic place and he had wanted to walk around and see it. From what we can tell, this doesn’t seem to be the case at all. We are learning that the itinerary’s most interesting features are mostly a “work of fiction.”

There’s a big satellite station just across the road, but no handphone signals nonetheless. And as crappy as it may seem, this is the last town before the long, multi-day Sahara desert crossing to Agadez and subconsciously, we all clutch our newly filled water bottles closely.

This night we drive just outside of Bilma, partway to Fachi and camp in the dunes again. Another picturesque spot, with a campfire and the ubiquitous soup and stew.

I’ve got a great spot for my tent - in the “dip” of a ridge overlooking a seas of dunes beyond. A location I’ll be very happy for, as it affords easy access to the toilet - just dump down the far side of the dunes, and the fact that those who camped down on the flat, find a huge spider outside their tent in the morning! Always keep that tent flap zipped!

Eissa sets up a shower on the side of one of the cars, but all the older couples monopolize it until way after dinner when it’s really dark and far too cold. So a few us stay dirty for a while longer.

There’s our first introduction to Tuareg tea after dinner and Steve, (A 60 something single Mormon from Utah), tells us about his obsession with it, from his previous 6 weeks traveling around with non-English speaking guides in the service of the Natural Bridge & Arch society. Steve’s a retired air force officer who spends alternate 2 month periods traveling and at home, planning for the next trip. Certainly one of the most deeply traveled people I have ever met.

Day 5
Thursday 30 March 2006

The usual breakfast, . . . do you really need me to repeat it??

We start our drive through desert, I’m still in Lamin’s car with Sue, Will and Bev. Right out, we encounter very fine sand, (like the colour of lake Michigan north shore of Chicago beaches)
Then lots of rolling dunes up and down and sideways down. Our car got stuck 3 times; Lamin’s just not aggressive enough in the dunes, always waiting to shift when already in the soft sand or the bottom of a trench. Throughout the day, it’s mostly flat soft sand with low ridges of dunes along the left.

For lunch, as usual, we always seem to be able to find a broad branched acacia tree, providing shade. This one’s near Fachi and the site of some sun bleached camel bones which David, (who is ever-so the expert on everything), displays for us all.

After lunch we drive into and walk around the town of Fachi. Not much to see here again, but lots of kids, some of them write their names in my notebook: Hodiza Chouzou, Iraddi Lionelle, and Koga Mouzstafa.

The highlight of the day is Rei & Sharif riding in the back of the truck, standing up, cheche’s flapping in the wind! It was quite a sight to see them ripping across the dunes. Modern day Lawrences of Arabia.

It’s another night camping in dunes; we’re about halfway to Agadez. The shower is set up on the side of the car again, and this time I’m the first in line. Still light AND still warm! The “shower” is really just a plastic sheet on the side of the car so that people can’t see you through the windows from the other side. The car is parked away from the camp some little distance, and One stands on the far side and douses Oneself with water from big plastic water cans. But it’s great to be able to wash your hair nevertheless.

After the shower, took advantage of another car’s cigarette lighter to power up the computer and transfer video files from the memory sticks to it. Though I had not planned to bring the notebook, it was a good thing that I did, for only my two 2GB memory sticks would never have been enough. By the end of the trip, I had amassed over 16GB of video.

It was only by chance that I brought the computer at all. It was destined to be put into left luggage at the Gare Lyon train station in Paris, awaiting my return and subsequent need during the post-trip day in Milan. But when the bag went through the X-ray machine at the entrance, the attendant said “no computers allowed in the lockers!” Anyway, I digress.

The dinner campfire that night was wonderful. More boxed wine and Tuareg tea to top off the evening. A relaxed and comfortable evening, (and almost clean), in the dunes!

Day 6
Friday 31 March 2006

Still in Lamin’s car with Sue, Will and Bev this morning, (it IS the “cool” car after all); we start off early and drive to the “Tree of Tenere” and it’s well, where 2 men latch onto a rope and run away from the well to pull up the goatskin buckets of water. Seems to be mostly army guys here today.

It’s incredibly windy and I cannot stay outside for more than a minute or two, my contacts are brimming with sand, and I end up having to keep one of them out for most of the day.

The day is all hazy, it’s the beginning of a serious sandstorm.
We have lunch under the camel leather tent today, top strung between 4 corralled cars again, due to the sandstorm weather.

The sandstorm lasts all afternoon and it’s almost unbearable in the cars since we have to keep the windows shut and it’s so hot outside; it’s like a super heated dry sauna inside. Today has also been one of the longest drives to date; we’ve covered over 450 kilometers over nothing but featureless sand.

We stop in another small desert truck stop type town, Erelgaouene - where Eissa and his crew try to bargain for a goat for dinner. The open air butcher shop had several recent cuts, but we wanted fresh, but alas, the locals were not willing to sell a live goat to us, so we leave empty handed.

We’re happy to reach the outskirts of Agadez by nightfall.
Eissa wants to camp in a wide sandy wadi (dry riverbed), says it’s the only way to escape the wind; but lots of people’s livestock compounds are lined along both lightly forested sides of the wadi, so the entire area is strewn with goat, donkey and camel shit.

Everyone revolts and we drive off to look for new spot. The light is fading fast as usual, (no matter what we do, we never seem to reach our camp sites until a half hour before sunset).

The new site is beautiful, one of the best yet: a “Monument Valley” in miniature, a small U-shaped plain enclosed by rocky outcrops, little canyons and a barrage of steep dunes ; very scenic.

It’s still very windy, and I still have problems with my contacts, so my objective is to find a place to pitch the tent with little or no wind. I explore the area for quite a while before being convinced by Rei, (the mad Japanese guy from San Diego), to pitch tent up at the top of the back canyon, where there is a small patch of sand where the winds cross and completely cancel each other out.

It’s a few minutes walk up to the back of the canyon and quite remote from the cars and where everyone else has pitched their tents, on the plain. It’s eerily quiet, and certainly far out of sight, the only views being far out across the other open desert plain beyond.

During dinner down in the protected valley on the other side where the cars are, I begin to worry about the various wildlife that may be on the prowl in the canyon in the early hours: the scarce desert sand leopard, horned viper snakes, spiders, not to mention what bandits may see my flashlight on the ridge at night overlooking the far plain beyond the canyon, and come up in the early hours to rob me blind!

Of course, it didn’t help that we saw translucent spiders running around the perimeter of the campfire, where we were eating, at dinner! To top it off, Neil, (a London Reference Librarian who is also THE authority on almost anything you’d care to mention, and mad keen about birds and other wildlife), and Penny – were wandering around in the dark looking for scorpions with his UV flashlight – thankfully, no luck, only a few questionable “tracks”…

Anyway - Rei is sleeping in the open air in a rock outcrop nearby, so they should go for him first! - though he is off in the plain for most of the night trying to get his telescope set up.

After some apprehension getting to sleep, I have a peaceful night without incident.

Day 7
Saturday 1 April 2006

On the road again, today to Agadez! - that bustling metropolis with ice cream shops, patisseries, and other wondrous delights, (or so we hope). It’s my last day in the “cool” car for a while, but not much driving today anyway.

Our first stop is at a few stumps of petrified wood. Everyone is snapping away like it’s the eighth wonder of the world; frankly what we’ve seen in western Java was far superior. Good opportunity for a crazy photo though.

Driving on from here, over a rocky plain, a very dense sand storm whips up again, we can hardly see the cars ahead of us. We stop at a small escarpment with some, supposedly, very fine rock art. Almost impossible to see as the sandstorm is in full force. I can barely make it up to the cliff face from the car, (20 meters), let alone look at it.

I put a towel over my head and made my way up the small inclined dune, keeping the opening to my face down wind and just pointing the video camera away to the left to try and capture some of it. No idea whether anything came out or not. Wasn’t out of the car for more than 2 minutes before both eyes are full of sand and I have to race back to the car – can’t even tell which car is which, I tried to get into the wrong one at first.

Further driving reveals the first sighting of what we now know to be poisonous puff plants, with round green fruits dangling from their sparsely leaved branches like softballs. Sharif has told us that if broken, the pithy interior is caustic to the eye.

It’s extremely hot in the car again, like a sauna. Cannot open the windows due to the sandstorm and no aircon as a usual policy.

Noontime arrival at the guest house in Agadez. Rooms are like, (not as good as), the Mersing Rest House; (metal beds, hard sandy concrete floors, no windows, noisy ceiling fan, pastel colours, rusty bathroom…but all very welcome after so many days of camping and no real showers!

Electricity! This would be the one and only time I would ever have electrical power for charging things in the entire country of Niger!

The guest house itself is pleasant with a nicely planted central courtyard offering a little bit of shade and room for the cars in the center - for safety/security from these ”big city” elements! All the rooms are low one storey blocks, surrounding the courtyard with the popular welded metal doors.

Buildings in Agadez are mostly one storey mud plastered construction. If they are 2 storeys, (in a very few circumstances), they will have wooden sticks projecting out to act as scaffolding for annual repair of the mud plaster exterior face, much like the main mosque, but obviously not as tall, nor as extensive.

A few of us spent the afternoon walking around town and through the market, where the “shabu shabu” in the wet market meat section is the main attraction! (See photos!).

We met “Bibi” a local limping “facilitator” who would prove to be useful the next day.

We had a 6pm rendezvous at the mosque, as arranged with Paul, (the souvenir seller form the guest house’s central courtyard). A few thousand CFA each and we’re allowed to climb up the tower and view the town until 6.45PM. The stairs leading up the interior of the tower are increasingly narrow and cramped as one approaches the top; it’s all constructed from mud and wooden beam/rattan mat ceilings. The top opening is big enough for only 3 people or so really, but there are nice views over the low, monochromatic mud town in all directions.

We had dinner at a “garden” restaurant, about a 25 minute walk away from the guest house. Nice open courtyard compound, cool with a long table for us and souvenir sellers’ table nearby. A bit over lit with glaring pole lights, but pleasant nonetheless; due in part no doubt to the Niger beer.

Luckily we get rides back in the cars to the guest house. A single beer with Rei, Erland & Beverley on the terrace and we’re ready for bed.

Day 8
Sunday 2 April 2006

We spend the morning on a walking tour of Agadez with Eissa, Bibi and our drivers. To the camel market, which was mostly goats and donkeys, and then through the main sundries market again. My contacts were still bothering me, but I managed to grab a fair amount of video nonetheless.

Lunch at the same restaurant as Saturday night, but this time in a low slung tent structure in the back of the main building. Covered with canvas and carpets and with the ground underneath covered with carpets and cushions lined along the sides - it was a very comfortable, not too hot space. Lots of flies inside though; Rei trapped hundreds of them inside a disused Niger beer bottle, baited with Le Pain! Afterwards they all congregated on the uneaten orange slices, for a colourful and high contrast photo op!

After lunch I shared a car with Colin, who dropped at a nineteenth century German explorer’s house, then I went on to the internet shop for a half hour. A small mud brick building, but thankfully with air conditioning! Able to check my Goggle mail after a while fiddling with the euro-centric keyboard where all the keys were a bit mixed up. The “crunchy” feeling also didn’t help, as the keyboard was pretty well filled with sand!

Missed my rendezvous time with Bev, Rei and Erland, but made my way to the market nevertheless, and of course found them within a few minutes. Turns out Agadez wasn’t QUITE the bustling metropolis that we had expected after all.

They were picking up a Tuareg outfit that they had ordered to be custom tailored the day before - for Will’s birthday. It was quite enormous, (for a 10 year old, not 3), but none of us had the sense to have alterations ordered then and there….

Spent some more time walking through the market, picking up some new printed cloth for shirts for myself, (“heartbreak phone call” & “dismembered fingers with third eye” patterns). We ran into Bibi again, who sorted out a tailor to make up a shirt from the fabric for me, by that evening. Afterwards, we ending up wading through almost each and every antiquity shop along the way back by the main square, culminating with Tuareg tea at Bibi’s shop where we deliberated over what to buy to thank him for helping out. Got a feather-like Woodabe elbow decoration and changed some money, then back to the guest house for some sorting out before dinner.

Started the transfer of video files to the notebook again, clearing out the memory sticks for MORE video! Sorted out the files of Sharif talking and riding the back of the truck, bought a CD-R from the “La Romance” videotheque store opposite the main square, (US$4!!), and burned it for him. Gave it to Eissa for onward delivery.

Dinner at a charming truck stop type of restaurant, open air, as everything was everywhere we went, but with coloured lights strung around the perimeter, music, sports on a TV, and a snappy waitress who was friendly and smiley no matter what we threw at her!

Videos of Erland and Beverly having an argument, though of course they would always stop as soon as they realized I was filming. Funny about that, why does that ALWAYS happen??

Back to the hotel and drinks on the roof terrace! Here it was, after only a little time and a few beers, that “Terrace Shopping” was invented! Shouting across to the antiquities shop below, across the street on the main square opposite the mosque, and just down the way from the blaring music of the “La Romance” videotheque store, we were able to convince the proprietor to commence bargaining on a two piece wooden sling chair for Rei.

Inexplicably, this shop was STILL open at 11.00PM, so we pursued the bargaining nonetheless, for over an hour back and forth, culminating in the product being brought UP through the guest house to the terrace for our inspection, “No, it’s too small,” we said, etc., only to be replaced by a larger version that subsequently passed the test. Of course, the ever-present Woodabe day-tripper souvenir sellers caught on to the whole excitement and started THROWING up their wares to us on the terrace for further inspection. This would have been ok, if they weren’t DAGGERS; but fun nevertheless.

Rei settled on great chair and it was a fun evening for all, even if I did have to end up buying a few more daggers to get rid of the Woodabe guys who, by the end, had invaded our sanctious space on the terrace.

Day 9
Monday 3 April 2006

We began the long drive, (did we ever have ANY short drives?), from Agadez to Timia at 7AM. The mistake I made today was to switch cars back to Malik’s. Thought I would be nice to give Erland a chance to ride in the “cool” car, with Bev, Sue & Will.

I had Colin, Steve and Sharif in the same car, so it was very squeezey. Entering the Air Mountains country, an exceptionally rocky and rock-strew terrain, we had a “road” for the first time in a week, but it was really more like a rough hewn track in a quarry. It was a long, rocky, bumpy, and un-relenting drive.

Several people were sick by lunch, (Penny, Mary, etc). We stopped at a sandy wadi amidst a lot of scrub bushes and a few strange trees, all in the middle of a hot rocky nowhere. I christened it “The Sickly Wadi,” it would’ve make a good title for an Edward Gorey story or one in the “Series of Unfortunate Events.” Quite apt, as everyone was literally ‘down in the dumps,’ sullen, hot & tired.

I sat on top of one of the cars, on the pile of camping mattresses, and though I thought I would take a rest like everyone else, I used the opportunity to make more notes for the trip log. It was here that I realized that I hadn’t had to use my reading glasses for almost the entire previous week. Wow, what a really nice thought; just like the old days, when I could see un-aided!

Later in the afternoon we stopped, why I can’t remember, but I happened to look up and I noticed this fantastic alien sun ring; like a perfectly round, de-saturated rainbow surrounding the sun in the upper atmosphere – very strange. I’ve never seen anything like it – it was very cosmic.

The rest of the afternoon was spent in the car with Steve, Erland and Colin. Steve told us all about the various GPS brands: Gormon, Magellan, Cobra, though it didn’t take long for me to forget which one was best and why.

I began to feel the effects of the drive by mid afternoon, worsening as we approached our camp for the night at the cascade of Timia. Queasy, lightheaded and nauseous, I had to keep my head down in the car the whole way and hope for the best. When we finally arrived, it was all I could do to get my tent up quickly, not far from the cars, so I could crash right away.

I felt like diarrhea and vomiting up all night, but managed to psyche myself out of it until morning. Many fitful dreams all night, waking up every hour or so, and sleeping with one contact still in – too weak to find the wetting solution and case and deal with it all. Slept off and on from arrival, through dinner and all the way until morning,

No dinner for me tonight.

Day 10
Tuesday 4 April 2006

Just after first light, the pressure of impending diarrhea forced me out of the tent to the far side of the cascade’s stream for relief.

The cascade was a beautiful setting, it was really too bad that I had to miss so much of it. It was a natural stream that emerged from a slit in a cliff wall that enclosed a small valley on 2 sides. This formed a fresh water pool underneath it, with what appeared to be a wide sandy beach all around it. The water exited this pool along a muddy wadi out beyond the far cliff face. Cold and fresh.

As for my sickness, this morning I felt slightly better. Sleeping straight through seemed to do the trick, and I though I still felt a bit light headed, I was definitely on my way to recovery after breakfast. And all without the vomiting and diarrhea that had plagued others previously, starting with Maryann early on in the trip.

Hard bread for breakfast again, but a visit to the souvenir sellers on the sand nearby our camp yielded great results with the purchase of an amulet inscribed with the Tuareg alphabet. Of course, listening to Sharif reciting the characters inscribed on it sounded mostly like “a’s”, as spoken by a person with varying stages of pneumonia and/or tuberculosis, but intriguing and visually appealing nonetheless.

It was a 15 minute drive into Timia from the cascade, through a road carved out of the rock, like a snow-plowed channel, then driving down a rutted track up the wadi to reach a sun-kissed town with many hand wheel crank enhanced wells in the middle of the wadi along the way. All the kids were furiously cranking the wells, with others waiting with wheelbarrows and plastic jugs to fill for their daily supplies.

Timia appeared to be a prosperous if low lying mud brick town with clean deep loose sandy streets and large living compounds. We were led through a maze of one meter wide pathways behind the houses by a couple of young boys with a bicycle, which was barely rideable in the loose sand. Bev went back to the car to fetch some CFAs and we stopped at a small “shop” with a covered front area, where the proprietor was busily working away on a pedal action sewing machine, making Tuareg garments.

We bought a few cokes and enjoyed the “somewhat“ cold drinks and the peaceful relaxed atmosphere. No wind here!

Driving out of town, Steve pointed out the low hill that a crazy woman from Los Angeles had promised to return to and build her new home. He had met her on a previous trip several years ago. Needless to say, neither she, nor the home, was in evidence.

The town did seem to have expended an unusual effort in clearing the wadi and lining the sides with neatly stacked stone walls/fence, showing their industriousness and pride. Stopped at the “garden” (orchard), along the way, where the cooks picked up grapefruits and oranges for consumption over the next few days.

For the rest of the morning, we drove through rocky landscape and many sandy wadis with lots of the poison puff fruit (eucalyptus-like) tress along the way.

We had lunch under the trees near a well with many camels and goats. Grapefruits for lunch, but they were very acidic and bitter; NOT a good idea after the previous day of uneasy stomach troubles. Anyway, I started taking Dramamine today, so things seemed to be “running smoother.”

We stopped at the site of an “ancient village” that was inexplicably decimated. Though, as usual, nobody could tell us anything more about it. Eissa, also as usual, was nowhere to be seen during the entire day. The village was basically piles of stones, together with some near-petrified timbers/beams littered around a landscape the size of a small village. It reminded me of the Nuraghic structures in Sardinia a lot.

We stopped later in the afternoon at a good rock art site. Large giraffes, smaller animals, and some contemporary Tuareg characters carved into a small escarpment.

We reached Iferouane in the late afternoon. I stupidly ordered cold sodas from the roadside stall for Bev, Rei, Erland and I, thinking that they would be the same 500CFA as everywhere else along the road. Turned out they were 1000CFA and we left with a bad taste in our mouth. Erland refused to give up his glass bottle without them retuning a 500CFA “deposit” back to him! Unfortunately, even that didn’t work.

Nothing else of interest in this town, it seemed like a real gyp-joint. Even the “museum” was a thinly disguised artisan workshop souvenir stall place. We refused to go, or indeed spend ANY more time in the town after the soda incident. Eissa said later that sodas should only be about 200- 300 CFA, not even 500 that we had been used to paying throughout the trip.

We drove slightly out of town to an organized campground with small thatch huts and the promise of toilets and showers! I was still quite low on energy since yesterday, but it was nice to rest in a relatively clean and seemingly protected area. We all pitched our tents rather than brave whatever bugs might be lurking in the thatched huts, and their camp beds.

We had dinner that night of a freshly slaughtered ram that the drivers had gone out to fetch after the failed transaction in Erelgaouene a few days earlier. As usual, with any meal that was even only slightly out of the norm, we had to wait for hours! Given the state of the previous week’s “meat” dishes, nobody dug in with any gusto. It was not bad though, just not very thoroughly cooked. Also by this time, almost everyone was suffering some form of the sickness, so all of us were quite lackluster.

A dance was arranged by local Tuareg group just after dinner, but by the time dinner came, (late arrivals were a common phenomena), and we finished, it was already after 10PM, so I ducked out and just listened to the music in my tent as I drifted off. Reports from others the next day said I didn’t miss much anyway.

Day 11
Wednesday 5 April 2006

I took advantage of the “showers” and at least washed my hair; not too bad an experience, though I did have to pay CFA500!

Didn’t see ANY kids or villages for the whole day driving. No “cadeaux!” Little did I know at this time, that we would never again see the crowds of eager kids and villagers that we had in the first week in Niger. It was a shame, since by now, I had plenty of shirts and socks ready to toss out the car window, to the spirited sounds of “Cadeaux” as we whizzed through nameless villages. Alas, it was not to be the same in this mountainous part of the country.

Only saw a few wells along the way. Stopped to see rock art at two more locations, neither very spectacular. We ate lunch at the last one. This was another, this time quite LARGE escarpment, which we ate in the shady (somewhat) side of. It was still 51 degrees Celsius, so most everyone napped after lunch. The face of the escarpment was covered in small holes form a few feet to many feet above the ground. Eissa told us these were nests for horned vipers, though they looked more like birds’ holes to me. Anyway, we were dutifully advised not to poke sticks into them!

Apparently there were recent tombs on top of the mesa. Though again, Eissa was totally uncommunicative and I only heard about this after the fact, never having had the chance to view. I still had lingering diarrhea at this point, so I made several trips to nearby bushes and the top of the mesa for relief.

The drive today was through desert like a gravel parking lot, with light dustings or small drifts of sand that looked like snow.

Later on, another desert type was light coloured sand with a perfect dusting of widely spaced small black stones, like dragon fruit.

It was this late afternoon when Sharif was driving, that we became separated from the other cars. Lost in the featureless expanse, with no sight of the cars, or indeed ANY other landmarks at all. Sharif became uncertain and started driving off to the side, presumably in the RIGHT direction, so that he would eventually cross the car tracks of one of the other vehicles, that, again hopefully, would have been ahead of us. There’s no feeling like driving through the desert with no tracks ahead of you; it’s an invigorating explorer feeling and lonely and a bit daunting, all at the same time.

After about 40 minutes, we eventually DID cross the tracks of the other vehicles, though we passed by several other tracks that he crossed without hesitation beforehand; how he can tell WHICH tracks are the FRESHEST is very hard to discern. The other cars were waiting for us, as all of us ended up having to do for one car or another at various stages throughout the trip.

This was our last night in the dunes, and decidedly one of the best locations we had seen in the trip. Much like the first few nights in the dunes, after we had first entered Niger, this location within miles of the Algerian border was perfect sand and dunes high and spread out infinitely to the horizon. Though we arrived late, just before sunset again as usual, we all spent some time climbing to the tops of the various dune ridges and soaking it all in right up until sunset, rather than rush to put up the tents. It was a magical atmosphere, well befitting our last night in Niger and the “real” desert.

Eissa chose this evening to try and set up his fancy notebook computer and satellite modem, which we had thought he was using consistently throughout the trip, but turns out he had never gotten it working since the time he bought it on the Champs d’Elysse in Paris. Tried to help, but he really just couldn’t get it. As I was really not in the mood to play “Help Desk” on MY holiday.- too painful!

Many that were still weak from sickness or tired from the drives crashed straight after dinner, though several of us wish we could have lingered much longer. No boxed wine or Niger beer to keep us going, we settled for our last Tuareg tea and retired shortly thereafter.

Day 12
Thursday 6 April 2006

After the usual hard bread breakfast, PAIN!, a half hour drive to the Niger border, which turned out to be a bustling encampment of trucks and stalls littering the sand around them, offering up all kinds of snakes, fried food, diesel fridge cold drinks, piles of firewood, strolling cigarette sellers and money changers. Didn’t seem to be much other reason for this ugly collection of enterprises to be there; it was a completely barren stretch of sand and the detritus of many a traveler littering the surrounds.

Changed some Euros to Algerian Dinars, though we were still on the wrong side of the border and suffered from double exchange rates. Also bought some large carbonated cold orange drinks in large bottles for only 500CFA. Unfortunately we greedily drank these down; later in the day we would have wished that we’d saved some.

We waited around 90 minutes in the hot cars for our passports to be cleared, said goodbye to our Niger guides, driving team and one of the cars; we were down to 6 now.

Another 30 minute drive across the dessert to the Algerian board post, which was much more developed and efficient by comparison. Where there had been no clear indication of how to proceed or even any official appearing building on the Niger side; in Algeria, we were instructed to walk through a shallow water trough to protect the country against bird flu, (SOME of the cars drove through something similar), and into a cool passport control building. Still “Mersing Rest House” standard, but to us, it appeared VERY civilized after weeks in the desert.

A 90 minute wait here to go through two sides of processing, where shortly after finishing and all ready to go, Colin collapsed from heat exhaustion. Another half hour with doctors David & Ernest, bringing him back up to speed, and we were off.

Another 30 minute drive to lunch, under the prototypical acacia tree, unfortunately this one, with lots of large aggressive ants.

We started out again at around 3PM or so with a short drive to a petrol filling station town with paved streets and lamp posts! We visited the two only shops in town and bought some playing cards, candies, and Sue bought a roll of “fragile” packing tape, with which she was able to fashion a rudimentary “sumo” style diaper for Will. The highlighted merchandise in these dim shops that day was a “King Baby” set, and although tempted, we DID pass on the purchase.

Our “serious” driving for the day commenced only at 3.30PM, driving straight onto wonderfully paved asphalt roads. We thought we were home free! Unfortunately the road didn’t last long, and it was back to the rutted desert driving in the wake of many trucks that had passed days before, a few of which occasionally passed us this evening as well.

We passed many spectacular “wrecks” along the way, which made for great photos.

Shortly thereafter a brand new asphalt road teased us, tantalizingly close to our sandy ruts, but obviously still closed for traffic, as evidenced by the many piles of stones in incredibly close rows every 50 feet or so, for tens of miles. So we were doomed to desert driving again, which wouldn’t have been so bad if the rocky landscape and ruts hadn’t begun to disappear shortly after dark. It was then back to open desert driving, but this time at night and with no markers for direction to head towards town.

The night was so dark that each car had to follow the one in front of it, but the dust trails from each vehicle were lasting for about 2 to 4 miles, making the taillights of the car in front close to disappearing most of the time.

As a consequence, and the drivers’ various individual bravados to strike it out on their own, the cars got separated and were never able to re-group in total for the rest of the evening. No one knew whether Eissa was ahead of or behind us, another one of the cars went permanently missing, though 3 of us stopped and waited for them several times, and the drivers suddenly seemed unable to operate the satellite phones!

We had to stop at another encampment of cars that had given up for the night, a few guys around a campfire, and ask them for directions.

All-in, we were driving straight though until about 10.30 that night. Finally found a “kind of” road, but soon experienced many signed “deviations,” back to the rutted track we were on, even one in the last few kilometers to town that we thought sure would make our lone vehicle a prime target for bandits!

We considered it a miracle that we made it at all, given that it was over 400km over dark unmarked terrain, from when we had started in the late afternoon.

However, after we almost ran over a camel sitting in the middle of our path, and passed the police checkpoint at the entry to Tamarasset town, we found out that Lamin, our driver, had no rendezvous plans with Eissa. He intended to just drive blindly around town looking for a familiar car? Hungry, tired and pissed off, we found an alimentarie and got some ice cream, soda and fig bars.

We made him take us to the Hotel Tahat and enquired at the desk, where we found Eissa had just left and would return in a half hour. They wouldn’t let us check in, not enough rooms for all the groups Eissa was bringing, so we were doomed to wander the town some more. Went down the street to another alimentarie, since the one that we were just at was now inexplicably closed, a phenomena which, we were at that time unaware, was due to be repeated several times again during our short stay….

Stocked up on cheese, chips and drinks at the new alimentarie, where Eissa showed up, and waited until we had completely finished buying all our food before telling us he had arranged for dinner at a restaurant!

I “lost it” at that point and had a shouting session at him in the middle of the store, which he meekly took in, shocked I guess, since as everyone knows: “I rarely get angry!” He should have waited, none of the drivers knew what to do, not enough rooms at the Tahat, etc, etc. I found out from Sue later that she was worried that I would “explode” and she thought she would have to intervene!

Drove over to the open air kopitiam-type restaurant where everyone else had arrived a half hour before, though we had been first to the town and had been doomed to wandering and buying food for over an hour.

More mystery meat, piles of french fries which nobody felt like eating, and no beer, should’ve ordered an omelet like Rei - so we all went back to the hotel pretty quickly after that, though it was already 1AM by the time we got to bed.

Drove past a very intricately lighted up compound with a series of archways in coloured lights, looked like a casino, and we never did find out what it was….

Shared a room with Rei that evening, small and crappy, but apparently the “best “ in town! Woke up at 4AM to the sound of Rei laughing, apparently he thought my snoring sounded like a Rhino! Har Har Har.

Day 13
Friday 7 April 2006

8AM start with a wonderful shower in the common bathroom! Then breakfast in a real hotel dining room, even if we did have to pay for the omelets and water from our own accounts. There go them Dinars; I never did seem to ever have enough in Algeria…

I did get a NEW, non-smelly, water bottle out of the deal though! (The 1.5 liter plastic ones that we had been carrying through the desert had begun to emit rather noxious odors, making our daily water taste funny). It was good to be in civilization again for a little while and trade them in for “fresh” bottles!

Walked around town in the morning after breakfast with Rei. Everything closed, or in the process of closing as we approached. Only thing open were a few postcard shops and restaurants. Ran into a few others also walking around, who warned us not take photos of the large military fort in the centre of town.

Lunch at a restaurant across the street from the one we ate at late last night; well known for their grilled chickens. We had passed it earlier in the day and asked Eissa to take us there for lunch. Turned out to be not so great after all. Started off in the back room with low tables and sitting on cushions. Eissa spent a half hour or so explaining away all the ineptitude of the previous night and the previous weeks of the trip. Everyone was fairly resigned to our fate by then, he didn’t get much of an audience , except for Neil who still needed to keep us his rant and sarcastic comments, so obtusely phrased that Eissa didn’t have a hope of understanding.

We moved out to the main room afterwards, as it was too hot to eat in the back.

After lunch, we started our drive up to Assekrem, 80km north west into the Hoggar mountains. 3-1/3 hours of rocky road way up into fantastic mountains, lots of volcanic cones, and strangely shaped mesas, very much like monument valley, but some of them even more impressive. Also reminded me of St Lucia in the Caribbean. Saw a few camels along the way, but no villages or people.

Lots of brouhaha from Neil’s car again as usual, who wanted to rush up the slopes so we could arrive before sunset. Honking and rude remarks whenever we wanted to stop for photos along the way, since we were apparently holding up the group.

Reached there just before sunset, where everyone dutifully tromped up to the top. Nice view, but not spectacularly necessary for sunset. Half hour climb up an inclined road with lots of French tourists, similar in scale and difficulty to Vesuvius. Able to come down a steeper, partially stepped path straight the refuge in only 15 minutes instead of 30.

Cold, but not as cold as expected, maybe 5 – 10 degrees. Horrible toilets 100 feet away from the hostel and no sinks or showers. Very apparent they didn’t have many long-stay visitors!

We had dinner in the upper floor room of the refuge at a long table and afterwards we retired to the lounge next door with low cushions and carpets on the floor and a fireplace. Mice throughout picking up the crumbs after dinner. Erland taught Rei and I “Texas Hold Em” after dinner, where we bet goats and played for an hour or so. I ended up with all the goats, 300 plus, but never was able collect!

I wad feeling really tired and exhausted all during and after dinner, lots of indigestion from the altitude, couldn't even drink the beer we’d bought at the hotel in Tamarasset and brought all the way up with us specially for a party that night. The waiter ended up glamming it all off us in the end.

The seventeen of us had two small rooms in the refuge with wall to wall beds, one for men, one for women, 8 – 9 beds/floor mattresses in each. Slept in clothes and polo fleece and under their blankets, but a fitful night with many wakening moments. Surprisingly it was quite hot in the room, even with the outside door partially open. Everyone was snoring and I had a squeaky bed that was very made a terrible racket whenever I moved even slightly, so woke with cramped muscles from single position sleeping all night.

Day 14
Saturday 8 April 2006

Many people got up at 5AM to climb the mount again and have tea with the hermit on top. I however, deferred until the SLIGHTLY more reasonable hour of 7AM. Breakfast just before 8AM – (Everyone is so “mad keen” about pre-poning times in the morning!)

Lynn & Ernest put themselves in charge of collecting tip money for the drivers, (only), for as Eissa would put it – “don’t give anything to Malik!” About EUR25 or GBP18.

Started the drive down at about 9AM. Several people had started to walk down earlier and we gradually overtook them and picked them up. Ernest was the farthest, waaayy ahead – took us about 30 minutes to catch up with him!

The entire drive back to Tamarasset took 4-1/2 hours today, an hour longer than the drive UP the mountains yesterday, though we did stop at the rock pools oasis on the way down today.

No Lunch today. We were supposed to have lunch under the last Acacia tree, before we flew off that night, but Neil finally succumbed to “the sickness” and was such a baby. He insisted that the cars rush back to the hotel immediately, so he could have a little lie-down, no matter what anyone else wanted to do. Beverley was quite upset. Since our lunch contents were spread throughout all the cars, there was nothing we all could do but follow.

So we stopped at our favorite Alimentarie on the way back, (which again closed JUST after we bought our ice creams, hmm…), and then on to the next Alimentarie down the street for some cheese and biscuits as well. Stopped at the Hotel Tahat to pick up the bags and laundry that we had left. Sue was irate that the laundry service included only “washing,” no DRYing - so even after two days there, the clothes were still wet, having been wrapped up tightly in plastic to “keep all the moist goodness in!”

Got to the Caravanserial guest house, or as the gate was strongly emblazoned; “Camping!” after 2PM. A wonderful little hotel of simple rooms, (like the Azores), though with unnecessarily small beds, spread around a central courtyard with a few trees. Far better than the supposedly “best in town” Hotel Tahat of a few nights ago.

Made the mistake of going to the bathroom for a pee, where Neil was parading around stark naked, for all to see; NOT a pretty site. Guess he didn’t know or care that it was an open doored, unisex bathroom/shower area!

Shared a room with Erland, dropped our stuff, then off to the restaurant Tasselli again fro lunch. This time, Beverley, Erland and I commandeered a VIP Chef’s table and insisted on not having the same old chicken, but instead asked them to prepare omelets with tomatoes for us! Of course, after determining that they had no cheese, mushroom, ham, (or indeed anything else), they still didn’t really get it, since the omelets arrived plain, (and barely cooked), and the tomatoes on separate plates. They were excellent and flavorful with sugar nevertheless. Of course there was plenty of “pain” for everyone, as usual!

After a short interlude back at the hotel, for a well deserved nap, we were off to “the Fair” at 5PM! Sharif paid our entry fee and took us to the Tuareg section, which did have a pretty good selection of handicrafts. Beverley bought a nice leather lumbar pillow that we coveted for the rest of the day. A German dealer told Penny later that these types of pillows were not being made any more and that you should “buy them all up” because they’re “endangered!”

Most of the rest of the fair turned out to be a kind of large, (3 country wide: Niger, Algeria & Mali), consumer discount market event. The balance of the goods on offer were diverse but geared to the locals’ day to day needs; Rei got a new pillowcase for only about a dollar. Some of the kids were interested in my orange LED watch and as usual, I was able to intrigue them for a short time with the reverse video.

There was a camel on offer for photo ops, but the handler seemed a bit irritable so we didn’t bother.

This was nothing like Niger however; it was painfully apparent that we had re-entered industrialized, consumer insatiable society, where the simple pleasures of people, interactions and day to day life were of little interest as compared to the modern day rat race. Buy, buy, buy!

Back to the Caravanserial for dinner, after an hour or two sorting out packing for the flight back to Paris that night and the long awaited real shower! Transferred some videos to the notebook, again to clear space for Milan, then dinner in the courtyard at a table for 4 - with Rei, Gerri and David. MORE French bread, but the salad and stew were surprisingly tasty, given all that we had been through in the previous two weeks.

There was an awkward hour or two after dinner, when everyone didn’t quite know what to do with themselves. The posters were distributed, but without the binding factor of more driving, a place to go to, or see, we were all at a bit of a loss. It was pretty obvious that everyone was really tired and just looking forward to moving on. A bit of reminiscing about the trip, but soon then it was time to go to the airport.

Less of an eventful drive that the incoming one from the airport in Djanet, and smooth check in, etc.

Much to everyone’s annoyance, I fired up the video for the almost, (!), last time in the gate waiting lounge, to catch everyone’s final comments about the trip and their experiences: “Exit Interviews.” Most played along nicely and hopefully there should be some good closing footage there.

Sue took the opportunity to “get into gear“ in her somewhat inconsistent quest for Johnny, the English guide from the other group, whom we occasionally ran into along the way. Thanks to the egging-on by Rei, Beverley and Erland, we got some great footage of her “making her moves” and the two of them “discussing” various things and generally making googley eyes at each other, much to the amusement of all of us and our video audience. This continued throughout the flight, several rows ahead of where most of us were sitting. Johnny seemed mostly unaware of our attention.

Of course all this attention pissed-off Sue no end, and we got flipped the bird on numerous occasions, though we continued unabated. Ah, the sacrifice for good quality dramatic footage!

Departure at 2AM and a pretty uneventful flight, landing in Paris, waiting for luggage and mostly tearless parting at Orly, where we all went our separate ways.

A last few moments with the “cool” people in arrivals: Beverley, Rei, Erland Sue & Will, and myself. Sue promised to send out the email list and we all made noises about keeping in touch.

Shared a cab with Sue & Will to Gare Lyon, where I dropped, sorted my luggage and got ready for my train trip to Milan that afternoon.

Final Thoughts

In retrospect, the trip seemed like a never-ending journey, an ongoing rush to get from place to place, without any real appreciation of the places we were passing through. Though this improved after the fist few days, when we all complained to Eissa why we had missed most everything that was itemized on the itinerary, the feeling of missing something never really left us. That coupled with the truly demanding typically full-day drives, day after day, got to us all in the end.

Mid way through when everyone got sick and this continued off and on among most us throughout the second week, zapped everybody’s enthusiasm as well. By the last day we were all ready to pack it in and move on with our lives.

That said, this trip was an amazing experience. The sheer range of desert types we passed through in a relatively short period of time, the eclipse, and the enthusiastic people we ran into in the towns in Niger was all very enriching. Other than the Hogar mountains, our experiences in Algeria were less interesting than Niger.

Surprisingly however, probably best of all, was the intensive camping orientation of this particular trip. It was quite an endurance exercise, certainly the long drives - but also with every night except for four, requiring us to camp in the wild open space of the desert. Almost every site we camped at was fantastic, and in particular the first few nights when the stars were bright and sharp.

Doing it again, I’d probably make a point to pin the operator down a bit more about the specifics of the itinerary and research the path of the trip more thoroughly.

But when all was said and done, I think most of us enjoyed most of the trip, even though parts of it may have seemed somewhat under-whelming.

For me, it was certainly the people that made the trip. A great group to travel with, and with only a few notable exceptions, most everyone was good spirited throughout the entire tip. No mean feat, considering the situations and hardships we encountered. Would gladly travel with a few of them again.