1. Nice, unpopulated coasts, majestic mountains
2. The Sahara is surprisingly diverse, Algerian deserts are among the most diverse deserts in the world
3. Good food, they use a lot of spices
4. Tourism has not yet spoiled the locals, so those few visitors can enjoy a great deal of hospitality, many locals help tourists selflessly
5. The almost 1000 years-old Ghardaia oasis city and its pyramid-shaped houses
6. Locals are intelligent, funny, nice
7. The Notre Dame d'Afrique and the main post office in Algiers
8. The moor houses in Kasbah, a legendary neighborhood of Algiers
9. A lot of olive groves and fig trees
10. The splendid landscapes of Kabila and the Aurés mountain
11. Roman ruins of Timgad and Djemila
12. The Moorish architecture of the Northern cities
1. The safety situation is volatile, we had to get fresh information to consider the itinerary
2. Hygiene and sanitation issues, water shortages here and there, using the public toilets is quite an outlandish experience
3. Tourist infrastructure still underdeveloped, not much information is translated into English
4. The tradition of violence is always in the air
5. The long-distance transfers in the countryside are rather time-consuming
6. Frequent identity controls, you must be very disciplined at military checkpoints
7. Oran is very shabby compared to Algiers
8. We did not risk visiting Kasbah without a local
9. Desert accommodations are shabby (though there has been some improvement lately)
10. Few visitors, which results in some embarrassingly hard stares from some locals
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
No
tourist infrastructure, and in the countryside it’s hard to find so
much as a café or shop that inspires confidence
Souvenirs aren’t
a thing, though you can find some local products here and
there
Bathroom facilities leave a lot to be desired
Huge
amounts of litter, which the locals seem to view as quite natural
We
were there in January and it was very cold – we hadn’t expected
this in Africa. There was even a big snowfall.
The locals don’t
speak English, which made communication difficult (French and Arabic
are the widely spoken languages)
Some people stares at us as
though they’d never seen white tourists before
It’s a vast
country, so you have to drive a lot between different sights
Getting
a visa is fairly difficult process, and the officials at the other
end don’t seem to have had a lot of practice
Some local buses
are on the verge of disintegration
There’s an enormous
difference between official and unofficial currency exchange, so it’s
worth seeking out the unofficial places
كل ابن آدم خطاء
