London - Bury - Algiers - Tamanrasset

Here I am, back in an internet cafe forcing out words on a keyboard designed for people who speak Arabic and use a jackhammer on each key. We (Christian, Gini and I) have just had an emotional farewell with our parents and are now seeking comfort on the web, as our generation tends to do. So let me recap the past action packed week as concisely and vividly as my already melting brain will allow.

After a night at the Walkabout to farewell London I had to make a visit to the Algerian embassy in a bid to get my visa in time for our flight out on Monday. With Lucas helping me carry most of my remaining worldly belongings through Gloucester Road, we found it. After some umming and erring they conceded that the passport had been lost. I suggested they stamp my Aussie passport (thank goodness for dual passports once more), and half an hour later I was farewelling Lucas on the tube at Piccadilly Circus. Four hours later I arrived at Great Green for G's suprise 80th birthday party.

See pictures from the two day extravaganza.

On Monday afternoon Gini, Christian and I were due to fly out from London Stansted. All the concerns centred around my pack weight, extra carry on luggage and no evidence of legally being allowed to be in or depart the UK. This concern soon turned to terror, but with respect to Christian's predicament rather than my own. It appears as though it was assumed that Christian's booking was made with Gini's, the single seat booked had elluded the double checking scrutiny of the two of them and Mum for a couple of months. So Christian was sent home to Bury again but managed to score a seat on Mum and Dad's flight to Algiers the following day, another stroke of luck overcoming another barrier to this trip.

So Gini and I flew via Barcelona and arrived in Algiers around 2am Tuesday morning, shortly afterwards being sound asleep in our hotel after safely negotiating the first real test of my French for a while.

The other three arrived the following afternoon and we proceeded to be taken for a ride by the most 'generous' and flattering restauranteur in Northern Africa. After he advised that he did serve bowls of cous-cous (which Mum was in search of), he then said he was out of cous-cous but had P...... Now we thought Paella was a bit far fetched from a request for cous-cous and figured he had said Pilau. When the big container of thoroughly old and seedy looking eel, prawns and lamb was emptied, we thought 'ha some suckers are going to get ill'. Our plastic table was suddenly adorned with table cloth, place mats, napkins etc (the only table to have this). Our host then gave us a big salad 'on the house' and offered to take us to the Kasbah the following morning and then to his holiday home on the eastern coast.

Then came the 'Paella Royale' - eel, prawns, fish; mussels, chicken, lamb and some veg and rice. We all resisted the urge to vomit knowing that very dodgy prawns and the eel with serious rigamortis was in there somewhere. But we forced down what we could and then were served dessert (on the house of course). The price tag, we discovered, to accompany such a feast would have made the snootiest waiter at Harrods blush. We walked home tail between our legs for having been robbed blind and waiting for the bacteria to wreak havoc with our innards. Luckily there were no after effects from the meal.

The next day we flew out of the Algerian domestic airport on a rusty winged old boeing, if I were a nervous man I'd have been sweating a bit. The view of the Sahara as we descended to Tamanrasset was like Mars (or my memory of the last time I visited Mars). Great waves of mountainous sand dunes with jagged peaks gave way to a chopping board like terrain, and finally the Hoggar Range that we are departing for tomorrow.

We were greeted by Affaoui Mohamed in his full jalaba and head gear - which he seldom removes, he and his family have been kind and generous, accomodating our broken French and feeding us at their home yesterday. The more French that I remember the less it seems they speak here, Arabic being the first language. There is much more I want to write about the people and lifestyle, but these keyboards are a challenge all of their own. I'll just leave descriptions at - it is hot, dry and very Muslim. Pictures are up.

The actual purpose of our trip to the desert will be explained in my next post.