The road past Berroughia wound up the mountain, and dense mist obliterated visibility for brief unexpected stretches. Confusing signs sent us in the wrong direction and we found ourselves on a rough unmade road. We wasted half an hour and precious petrol up the blind alley. The road we should have taken appeared to be still under construction, which explained why we missed it the first time. Once heading on the right course the road works soon opened out into a decent highway again.
At the top of the climb an apparently barren landscape stretched out before us. The car had laboured to take the hills and seemed to have lost power.
‘I hope that last lot of petrol was okay,’ said Ross looking worried. ‘If it’s been mixed with something dodgy it could damage the engine.’
Another visit to a garage was in prospect. We still had not reached the challenging parts of our journey to really test the car and these problems chipped away at our confidence. A punctured tyre also needed attention.
We decided to find a place for the night at Laghouat, get a decent sleep and a proper wash. Sleeping in the car started in France, the first night of many to keep expenses to a minimum. With seats reclined as much as the contents on the back seat would allow, rolled up clothing became pillows and we used a double wool blanket over us for covering. It had been a wedding present and still had a luxurious newness with its satin edge brushing our faces. Ross had stuffed some clothes into the well between our seats, but even a chaste goodnight cuddle was uncomfortable with our new arrangements. Resigned we sank back to embrace slumber. It helped to have been up since before dawn on that first day. The discomfort of being unable to lie flat or turn over properly mattered nothing against our weariness and sleep claimed us.
Having spent nearly twenty-four hours a day in the car since London, our personal hygiene routine had been minimal. It involved surreptitious wipe-downs with a flannel dipped in tepid water. The time was right for a morale-booster.
Laghouat is an important oasis for administration, trade, and the military, and can trace its history back to the eleventh century. Like most towns in Algeria it has a dark past stretching from before the Ottoman conquest in the eighteenth century through colonial French control. More violent clashes happened in the recent war of independence. Suffering had been a way of life to generations of these poor people.
During World War Two a prisoner-of-war camp in Laghouat was run by the Vichy French. It held British prisoners whose ship had been torpedoed in the Mediterranean and survivors described conditions as vicious. They had little food or water and depended on the German Red Cross for supplies. When these ended severe hunger took hold. Disciplinary measures owed more to the middle-ages than to the Geneva Convention and punishments were both cruel and arbitrary. Prisoners reported whippings for the smallest offences.
The only hotel listed by our outdated AA book had four stars meaning it was not in our league, but we soon found several others clearly below their rigorous standards. The one we found looked squalid from the outside and in need of a lick of paint, but after a room inspection and knowing it would cost us less than ten shillings each, we thought it an improvement on the car for one night. The man in charge of this hostelry had not been to charm school and ogled me with a smirk while fawning in a sycophantic way to Ross. Under the stars we climbed an open-sided stone stair outside the building to get to our room. Inside we found two single beds, a table and two chairs. A wash-hand basin with cold water and no plug stood behind a locally-woven striped cotton curtain. Although basic, its cleanliness reassured us, as did a double lock on the door. It would effectively keep out the caretaker amongst others.
I did some vital washing and draped it over the chairs and curtain rail to dry overnight. We made good use of the space and rearranged our bags to make their contents more accessible. After more than a week of living every day and night in the car we had a better idea of useful storage and what to place ready to hand.
Sheets but no blankets covered the two beds, so we pushed them together and took down the curtain for a bedcover. It was inadequate for the cold night but a mixture of laziness and fatigue prevented us from creeping down to the car in the dark to get our own warm blanket. The danger of falling ten feet off the wall-less stairs kept me in the building and the vile landlord also stopped me from wanting to use the communal toilet. We’d learned to avoid public lavatories including those in Europe.
‘Why don’t you go in the sink?’ said Ross.
‘That’s what I’ll be doing.’ ‘That’s all very well for you to say,’ I answered, ‘but I’m not built like you!’
‘Just be careful not to break it off its mountings,’ he laughed, ‘here, stand on this chair and don’t put your full weight down.’
I had the choice of meeting the lecherous landlord and any other undesirables, or suffering this new indignity. I chose the latter.
Revelling in the comfort of lying flat even with a hint of bed-springs sticking through the flimsy mattress, we looked up past streaky walls to where stars twinkled through high windows devoid of glass. It hadn’t been the most romantic start to the evening, but in the moonlight we made up for all our bed-free nights.
18th October
We’d misjudged the area. The region from the coast to the Tell Atlas is fertile in spite of its barren appearance, and good for growing grain. During French rule its productivity increased substantially by the sinking of artesian wells where only water was needed to make crops grow. Wheat, barley and oats were the main cereals and enough vegetables and fruits, especially citrus, grew to allow for export. Algeria was the principal producer of oats in Africa and also exported figs, dates, esparto grass, and cork. The mullah woke us with the call to prayer and a busy town came to life.
Laghouat’s many market stalls entertained us all morning. We found food prices higher than in Morocco but shopping took less time as haggling was not an option. I felt the heat of the road through my plastic flip-flops and revelled in the warmth of southern sunshine. We wandered into the covered meat section. Grey ‘fresh’ meat lay in a vile slimy mass, and two huge black bulls’ heads hung on butcher’s hooks complete with horns, dripping blood on to the ground. In a basket underneath we noticed a selection of ‘feet’. Our sandwiches and water diet suddenly seemed more appealing.
While we ate our lunch of bread and tomatoes in the car, a crowd of children gathered round to stare. Eating in public was evidently not normal practice and we felt like animals in a zoo. Town children wore shoddy clothes and usually ran around barefoot, but the offspring of nomadic herdsmen had even less. Later we came across these penniless unfortunates deep in the Sahara and wondered at their ability to survive. To address their poverty, the Algerian agricultural revolution began with a national policy to settle nomadic populations. This along with education would also make the nomads easier for the government to control. Here in Laghouat UNESCO had set up the first primary boarding schools in 1967 with the government’s blessing. They wanted equality of access to schools for all children, but mainly those from poor nomadic families. Existing schools in rural Algeria were being deserted for a large part of the school year as the nomads took their children with them to follow the family’s goat and sheep herds in search of fresh pastures. Setting up these boarding schools three years before our arrival was the first stage of a revolution to end centuries of traditional life.
Ross decided to have a look under the bonnet. A loose connection from the distributor meant we’d been running on three cylinders, explaining the engine’s lack of power. It had probably been knocked out of place on the bumpy track we found ourselves on when we took a wrong turning. Another problem had been solved, and we knew to check for it in the future. Ross visibly relaxed after he established a reconnection and his usual confidence returned.
Outside Laghouat we consulted the gendarmerie about permission to cross the desert, but our communications skills needed honing because misunderstandings arose and after considerable explanations we found that our journey would be plain sailing to El-Golea, where we should contact the ‘Baira’ or ‘Prefecture’. They also told us we’d find a bank at Ghardaia, another indication of our AA information booklet being outdated.
Driving onwards south of the town we found ourselves in the land of our imaginings. Laden camels travelled alongside the road planting their wide hooves with a steady rhythmic plod. Sand stretched as far as we could see to both sides of the ribbon of tarmac. Camel drivers carried whips and kept dozens of roped animals moving with shouts and whistles.
Revived by a good night’s sleep, confidence in the car restored, and enjoying our progress we sang ‘It’s a long and a dusty road,’ a popular sixties song by Tom Paxton as we drove along
We only knew the first verse, so it became repetitive, and sometimes we’d sing other songs, but always returned to this one which seemed particularly apt for our situation. Thinking we’d just started our journey across the Sahara and enjoying the adventure, we had little idea of what lay ahead. In fact we had not reached the Sahara proper and would not do so for many miles.
South of the Tell Atlas mountains is a steppe landscape ending with the Saharan Atlas and the biggest hot desert in the world starts south of the mountain range.The Hoggar route which we were following to cross the desert passes over the Ahaggar Mountains in central Sahara, southern Algeria. These mountains are found nearly a thousand miles south of Algiers and just west of Tamanrasset, one of a few desert towns on our route.
A constant breeze cooled our skin under the hot sun when we stopped for a break. Other travellers stared at us enjoying the sunshine, but we limited our exposure and to date managed to avoid being burnt. The heat seeping into our bones eased our joints stiff from sitting for hours on end. ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun,’ sprang to mind.
Later as we drove down an almost empty road we saw mirages shimmering in the empty landscape. They looked so convincing that we nearly took out the Brownie camera to take one of our rare black and white pictures. Appearing to be about two hundred yards away they gave the impression of an oasis with palm trees bending over the water, their fronds swept by the wind. But as we approached full of expectation at around fifty yards they would evaporate into a heat haze. Another vision we assumed to be a mirage turned out to be real with hundreds of date-laden palm trees set around a lake.
We drove into this apparition to find a traffic-free town. The dirt track twisted around the green palm grove set right at the edge of the desert. Few reminders of the 20th Century were evident in Berriane and the buildings and people could have belonged to biblical times. We felt as if we’d stepped into a film set for Aladdin.
Berbers have inhabited this part of North Africa since history began. The M’zab area of central Algeria is home to the Mozabites, Berbers who found refuge from persecution and came here nearly a thousand years ago. In the 7th century they’d broken away from mainstream Islam which made them unpopular and a threat to other Moslems. As outcasts in the desert they became skilled at managing water resources by building underground irrigation works to extend the fertile areas of oases, the main one being Ghardaia. Most Mozabites are Ibadi Moslems, following a very fundamentalist form of Islam. Unbelievers, sinners and those destined for Hell are shunned by the Mozabites and this belief cuts them off from much of normal society. They speak Zenata, a dialect of the Berber language for which there is no surviving written form. These ‘true believers’ have their women wearing a haik which only allows them to use one eye, the ultimate modesty.
Entering Ghardaia in mid-afternoon, trade eked out the remains of the day in a large market place. Never tired of looking at the wares, we whiled away two hours stretching our legs as we wandered from stall to stall. Women sat on the ground behind sad-looking vegetables piled in small pyramids on a cloth in front of them. Camels exuded terrible breath between yellowed teeth and complained noisily as they looked down their noses. Raw meat darkened in the afternoon sun and the seller waved a switch over it to chase away swarms of flies. The smell of flesh hung thick in the air and loud bartering gave way to hushed curiosity when we passed by. As obvious unbelievers and therefore bound for hell, we had a cool reception.
We had imagined that dates would be practically free in an oasis, and prices which compared unfavourably with those at home surprised us. Countless grades confused our choice and we wondered how quality was measured, something I had never thought to apply to dates. As we made our selection a small boy watched us with wide dark eyes. His hair had been shaved because of ringworm, and he stood in vest and shorts staring as children do at our strangeness. The ghost-like figure that could be his mother pulled him away with a sharp tug when she saw him. Awareness must have been difficult with only one eye and the effect worse than being blinkered. Back to our shopping, we blindly purchased a bagful of dates and left with five cents of Algerian money.
These proud people managed their scant resources well but we noticed many with deformities, especially around the eyes. Squints, styes or inflammations were a common sight and beggars whose eyes had a milky blindness not unusual. The cause could be obvious. Small children sat in the dust, their faces smeared with dirt and snot with flies crawling around their eyes and mouths. If they swept the flies away they only returned a few seconds later so as toddlers they soon learned not to bother. They looked at us with scrunched up expressions resigned to the filthy insects crawling over their faces. Outside a general store a young man with twisted legs and dressed in rags sat on a wheeled platform begging for money. He pursued possible benefactors with speedy aggression along the concrete veranda, and claimed our meagre five cents with obvious disappointment.
We still couldn’t get accustomed to seeing women in their white tent-like garb.
‘I like it that way,’ said a chatty man we met in a petrol station. ‘I am the only one who can see my wife. No other men ever see her and my friends do not know if my wife is very beautiful or not, so they don’t get jealous. It is better that way.’
It was true. The only giveaway was the elegance of a walk, the angle of a head, and the glimpse of an ankle or well-heeled shoe. On the practical side their skin and hair were protected from the harsh elements of wind and sun, as I had discovered. Travelling with the windows open for coolness my hair had become a dry tangle that broke into split ends when I tried to tame it with a comb. The skin on my face, arms and legs had developed dry patches in quite a short time and I’d taken to applying cream twice a day, far more often than I’d ever done in Edinburgh.
We hid our smiles at a small boy wearing nothing but a short white vest as he walked behind his mother, invisible but for one eye. I longed to take a photo but Ross shook his head.
‘It would be intrusive and might stir up bad feeling.’
In the mountain regions wives of poor husbands had a tough life. Used as beasts of burden they bent double under huge loads of firewood trudging along the roadside. We saw a man riding a donkey while his unfortunate wife held on to its tail, clutching an uncomfortable bundle to her back.
Women never drank alcohol even if their husbands broke the Moslem code, and nor would they be seen eating in public. They belonged in the home and in 1970 only twenty per cent of young women were literate. In Morocco the statistics were even lower.
Just before sunset we took the car out of Ghardaia to look for useful cast-off metal. Ross wanted to find some protection from boulders or ramps on unsurfaced roads. He was looking for something to attach to the front registration plate.
‘Our ground clearance isn’t very good,’ he explained. ‘If we could find the right piece of metal to hang roughly fifteen centimetres above the ground it could act as a warning. We’d hear the scraping and be able to stop or at least slow down. That could prevent serious damage to the oil sump and engine.’
We discovered a large dump of promising bits and pieces at the side of the road, unearthed and claimed an appropriate piece of metal, and stashed it on top of our accumulated possessions on the back seat. It would double as a solid base for driving over soft sand if necessary. A large flat piece of wood joined it as a useful support for the car jack on sandy ground and would prove to be well worth the car space it took up, as the workshop manual advised:
-Jacking-up the car:
Before attempting to jack-up the car, satisfy yourself that it is standing on firm and level ground. Make sure the handbrake is fully applied and use bricks or wooden blocks to chock the wheels that are not being raised.
19th October
Back in Ghardaia early we found a mechanic to see about recurrent wheel noises. Ross watched the proceedings at the garage while I went to change some travellers’ cheques eventually succeeding at the third bank I came to. The chemist came next for stocking up on water-purifying tablets. We’d started using them in southern Spain, but they made the water taste as though it had been taken from a swimming pool. The helpful pharmacist had to-hand a list of first-aid items recommended by the O.N.A.T tourist organisation for crossing the Sahara. We must have been well-prepared already because we’d covered the majority of items on the list. The chemist regarded some items on the list as superfluous including the antidote for scorpion venom which we’d bought in London. It had been a panic purchase on the day we left, along with anti-snake venom and a thousand aspirin tablets in two large bottles from the Piccadilly branch of Boots. We planned to use the latter for trade and impromptu gifts. I emerged from the shop with anti-tetanus vaccine and a box of throat pastilles.