Algeria always seemed mysterious to me. Not many people I know had been to the largest country in Africa.
Just look at the size of Algeria in comparison to Europe in the picture below.
Long viewed as North Africa’s most isolated and inscrutable country, visiting Algeria wasn’t the simplest task when it came to the visa.
The Visa Drama
On one hand, it was great that Algeria had introduced visa on arrival a few years back. On the other hand, you can only obtain the visa on arrival IF:
1) you visit a town in the desert AND
2) it is arranged by a local tour agency
and there in lies the issue.
I could not find a single travel agency that would quote me less than EUR 1000 for a 4 days 3 nights trip. Now how can that possibly be the case when the average salary is EUR 100 a month (according to a local I spoke to in Algiers)? Even if you multiply that by 5, it still doesn’t add up.
So I thought, I’d go through the hassle of applying for a visa instead. The problem there was that I needed an invitation letter and no one I knew (Algerian friends in Europe with family in Algeria) would help me write one because they’d get into trouble with their government. The government will ask why they are socialising with foreigners.
The Algerian friends I knew living in Europe all discouraged me from going. They said there was no way I could go around Algiers on my own. I shouldn’t take a train, go out at night, etc. It was bizarre. Long story short, I zipped around Algiers all on my own using the subway and their version of Uber, went out at night, and had absolutely no issues.
Fun side story on trying to obtain an invitation letter for the visa application topic was that, I started chatting with a fellow parent (where our kids were taking swim lessons at in the summer in Basel) who was from Ghardaia (the one town in the Algerian desert I wanted to visit) and asked if he could help me out with the invitation letter. He asked me if I could switch my dates as he was going to Ghardaia the first week of October. Alas, I had already booked flights to go to Iran on those dates.
Anyhow, I called the embassy here in Geneva, they never picked up (shocking – I’m sarcastic). I realised I had to book something with a travel agency after all. But where could I find one that would quote me a fair price?
Every Passport Stamp, the Facebook group for people trying to visit every country in the world, as always, was a great source. I reached out to a Dutch guy who had shared some pictures of his trip to Algeria and asked who arranged the trip for him. He shared Tito’s phone number.
And so I found myself headed to the south-eastern corner of Algeria, 190 km from Libya, 350 km from Niger, two-hours flight from Algiers.
I paid EUR 350 for 48 hours in Djanet.
The rest of the time was spent in Algiers where I also visited the Roman ruins of Tipaza and the Royal Mausoleum of Mauritania, west of Algiers.
Djanet
I realised I was one of the very few non-locals on this flight from Algiers to Djanet. Getting off the plane, entering the airport, it felt like I had landed in another country.
I had reached the land of the Tuaregs; semi-nomadic herders and traders living in south-eastern Algeria, northern Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and western Libya. Their looks, their dressing, everything was different from the Algerians in the north.
I wrote the below upon my return from Tassili N’ajjer, the largest national park in Africa in September 2023.
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There is a saying in Temasheq: The desert cannot be narrated; it must be lived.
How apt that is.
I struggle to find adequate words to describe the experience I had in Djanet, Algeria.
Seeing 10’000-year-old petroglyphs indicating the Sahara was once green and filled with large mammals like giraffes and elephants,
eating bread cooked in the sand around a warm fire after catching a beautiful sunset as a reward for climbing the largest sand dunes,
breaking into bouts of laughter as I attempted to teach Acroyoga to the Tuaregs,
admiring the towering rock formations as the 4X4 zips through the orange dunes,
sleeping under the Milky Way glimpsing countless shooting stars in the silence of the night,
spotting a scurrying hyrax seeking shade under the rocks during a hike in the canyon to a watering hole,
learning to wrap my head in the traditional shesh headscarf as protection from the unforgiving sun,
pouring/pulling hot tea from the teapot into the steel canister just like how we do it in Malaysia at breakfast…
There are very few places that has managed to evoke as much emotion in me as Djanet has. The vastness of space, the remote wilderness, the endless serenity; it is no wonder that Djanet has earned the title “Jewel of the Sahara”.
I cannot wait to return.
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Click here for a glimpse of what I saw: (3rd and 4th minutes).
A short poem
My heart stirred
Alone in the vast desert
Absolute silence
The wind blowing and the shifting sands
The sun setting in the horizon
Absolute peace
Communicating despite the language barrier
How wonderful this encounter has been
Absolute joy
