Listening to Nina Simone

I hitched a ride instead with Faysal, a photographer and friend of Said, headed back home to Tamanrasset from Alger where he had been visiting his wife and kids. Things apparently hadn’t worked out with his wife, but they were good friends he says. We left early in the morning for the 400km drive down to El Meniaa and then In Salah, where we would spend the night, Said entrusted with the task of sending my bicycle by bus.

Faysal drove like a man late for a meeting, the 240km took no time at all, and we arrived in El Meniaa before noon. The town used to be called El Golea under the French, and it is famous for its mineral water, still marketed under the old name. We discovered however, that no one in town sells bottled water (because…why should they: the mineral water comes out of the taps)! We filled my water bottles at a gas station.

Plaza at El Mineaa

The only gas station between El Meniaa and In Salah was closed. Faysal bought a jerry can (they call it that in Arabic as well), filled it at the gas station, and because it didn’t fit in the trunk, sat it on the back seat with all my stuff. He then pulled out some truly wonderful smoked salmon from Belgium out of the trunk for lunch, and we memorably set out for In Salah reeking of gasoline and fish.

Looking for jerry cans

Entry gate to In Salah

Late afternoon at I-n-Salah

Boubacar

Kasem had also made slide shows highlighting interesting features of the area around In Salah, and so I got the virtual tour of the petrified forest, the hot water springs, a small lake. I had thought to visit them personally, but Faysal had a schedule: it turned out he actually did have a meeting in Tamanrasset in two days.

Kader put us up for the night, and in the morning Faysel and I headed south. We thought we would make it well before dinner.

Dune approaching Arak

Rock

Tankers at Arak

At 325 km from Tamanrasset, Faysel shredded the back left tire. I felt complicit in our situation, aghast at the stupidity of not insisting on getting a spare at Arak. We pulled over behind a parked truck, a bus came by, and Faysal hopped aboard with one wheel to get a tire at In Ecker, 160 km away. I sat down with the truck drivers on a blanket they had put down under a tree, and we shared tea and peanuts.

Beudjabbara Slimone owns his own truck and drives all over Algeria depending on his latest load. He lives in Ouargla, where his kids all go to the university. We discussed the usual: politics, family, kids, and whether life was better in the US or Algeria. I argued for life among family and friends and a culture you knew no matter where that might be. He told me there were no tires at In Ecker, that Faysal would have to go all the way to Tamanrasset, and that he would be back tomorrow at the earliest. He suggested I move the car off the road in case of bandits or thieves.

Truckers

We were joined by three other truck drivers, one young guy pulling out a collection of three year old postcards written in English from a Hungarian girl he had met over the internet. He had held them all this time and never gotten them translated and simply wanted me to tell him the romantic bits, but there were none except for a single use of the word “Dear”. In any case, they were three years old.

I took their picture, got their addresses, and they took off for Tamanrasset. I sat in the car and tried to read Faysal’s French literature and waited.

I learned to wait when I was a kid, sitting in the dentist office amid Highlights and National Geographics. By turning my thoughts off and finding this hum inside me, I could make time pass effortlessly and without impatience. Interestingly, I never needed painkillers until I was in my twenties, around the time I remember losing my ability to find that hum. Waiting has been less easy since.

I couldn’t move the car, because I was sure Faysal had hopped on the bus without noting where we were. He would drive right by when he returned. That bit about the bandits and thieves had caught my attention however, so I pitched my tent out of view of the road, yanked all the valuables out of the car, and called it a night.

Faysal returned at 5am, the Tamanrasset-Ghardaia bus traveling at 30km/hr for half an hour searching for the car. He had a new tire from Tamanrasset, but left the food he had bought on the bus. I put him in the tent for some sleep, climbed a nearby hill, and waited for dawn.

So, I wait, watching the wind drive rivers of sand down the oued. A collection of upright slates surround a body-sized plot, and I wonder who might be buried in such isolation. The stars are stupendously bright and plentiful, with a faint glow on the horizon that might be dawn, or might be In Ecker. The theme to “I Dream of Jeannie” floats through my head, and thankfully doesn’t stay. I doze a bit, and suddenly realize the stars have gone, and then watch as slowly the sun rises to wash the surrounding peaks. I am radiantly happy that events have led me to this stunningly beautiful moment.

The morning after the second flat

Approaching In Ecker

We pull through In Ecker, a doubly fenced in reservation of radioactive stone and dust commemorating the three French nuclear blasts of the early sixties, one of which apparently didn’t stay underground and wiped out several Tuareg villages with exotic pestilence.

We get an extra tire at In Amguel, a used one made in the Czech Republic for the equivalent of 10 euros, at a garage that hadn’t been open the day before. Breakfast is an omelette of potatoes much like the tortillas I remember from 28 years ago in Spain, only with much more oil, and French fries for the potato bit.

Camels approaching Tamanrasset

The third tire shreds at 100 km from Tamanrasset, but now we have that spare. That spare shreds 20 km later, at 80 km from Tamanrasset. All of this would have cost us half the time if my satellite phone worked, but it is telling me “Account Invalid”. Faysal stops a car and asks them to call a friend to come get us, which they promise to do when they next get cell service. He then takes off on the next bus, again with one wheel. 15 minutes later he is back: he forgot his cell phone, but has sent the wheel on ahead with the bus driver, who will deliver it to the right garage for repair. An hour later Faysal grabs the next bus. More waiting. The brain goes numb in the heat, and you quickly lose any creativity or initiative...no, wait...that was the Beck's beer I found under Faysal's seat.

An hour later, three young guys pull up with two new, unmounted tires and spend quite a while wrestling the shredded tire off the wheel. They are unable to mount the new tire however, and I send them back to Tamanrasset to do it properly. A few minutes after they leave, the car that Faysal stopped and asked to make a call stops by, reassuring me that they did make the call…and by the way, what happened to the three guys that were supposed to come fix the tire. Faysal appears an hour later with a mounted tire, we take off at 140km/hour, and this time, finally, we do arrive at Tamanrasset.

Faysal

I awoke to find the moon set, a man making tea over an open fire, and a woman shaking her right hand with thumb and forefinger fixed in rigid “L”, a herd of goats clattering behind her. 9,000 year old petroglyphs in red ochre lay here amid green artemesia and thornier plants, and I walked later across a sandy plain tattooed by scarab and moula moula tracks to find them. Under an overhanging Boulder, staring up at an animal of incomparable elegance painted 320 generations ago, I suddenly experienced an overwhelming feeling of deep, inner tranquility.

It came as some surprise to recognize that this was exactly what I had come for.

Petroglyph

Ben Sebgab Lakhdar

Ben Sebgab Lakhdar

Lakhdar is an architect, a lucky coincidence that immediately gave us plenty to discuss. He studied at a university in the north of the country for six years, received his degree, came back to Tamanrasset, and within a couple of years found his present job.

Lakhdar works for the state, in exactly the same capacity as an architect working, for example, for the State of Massachusetts. He administers contracts, oversees the selection of architects and the development of the design and construction documents, and keeps an eye on contractor selection and actual construction. He told me that he appreciated his job, but that it kept him at a distance from the actual architecture and prevented it from being an affair of the heart. He hopes to open an office in the next five or six years for exactly this reason.

Ben Sebgab Lakhdar

Camels

Lakhdar took me to his home, where after some discussion with mom while I waited outside, we entered a small courtyard and then a concrete block room stuccoed inside and out with cement, with rusty steel beams supporting a corrugated metal roof. The doorway was open and there were no windows. We left our shoes at the door and relaxed on mattresses resting on rugs on the floor. Lakhdar brought in a metal cup of water and a plate filled with scalloped potatoes, carrots, onions and meat, from which we both ate using aluminum spoons. Naval oranges and three cups of tea served by a younger brother finished the meal.

Mosque under construction

Lakhdar told me that Tamanrasset experienced a lot of growth during the last ten years with the exodus from the north in the face of political turmoil, and the exodus from Niger in the face of famine. The city was unprepared for growth and did not have the resources to enforce any kind of master plan. Lately, however, services have been brought to the bidonvilles, a building permit is required, and enforcement of a master plan is in place.

I noted the lack of palm trees, a stark contrast to the M’zab Valley, and he thought the resource had been destroyed by the outsiders who bought land and didn’t understand the value of trees. I thought it was perhaps the biggest loss precipitated by all this growth. Lakhdar noted that the falling watertable level is a significant problem facing the city, with a pipeline in the works to bring water from In Salah 680 km away. I told him about the Rio Grande, and how it never reaches the sea.

Late afternoon bicycles

He enjoys traveling, and last year visited Sousse, Tunisia with friends. He went to Italy with some of the family the year before, to organize connections for his uncles “agence de voyage”. When I told him he should visit the United States, he said it was awfully far away.

We discussed building materials a bit, because I had heard at Poste Tagamart from Faysel that the village of Tagemart had been rebuilt entirely in concrete and stone. I thought it peculiar because the traditional mud and reed brick results in a much more comfortable interior, but Faysel stated that the State had paid for the reconstruction conditional on the use of cement. I thought: a stupidity that sounds like the World Bank or trade agreements or industrial pressure.

In fact, construction in stone and concrete is more impervious to water and probably requires less maintenance than mud brick. Lakhdar also showed me a 100 year old governors palace abandoned in 1935 however, sufficiently intact to merit restoration. I sensed that durability was perhaps in the details, not necessarily the materials. The good people of Tagemart have free, durable buildings in which to live uncomfortably for many lifetimes to come: presumably willing and possibly very proud participants in the arrangement. Somewhere, somehow, well intentioned people are perpetrating stupidity on a massive scale, though. I thought: “This too we have in common”.

Arcade

Surprising and wonderful things can follow from youthful or simply emotional impulses, there is absolutely no doubt. (Solo travel through Africa, anyone)? When I survey the stupidities I have personally perpetrated however, I understand this: I wish I had listened better, understood more, proceeded with a bit more caution, and considered the possible consequences. It’s a survey that makes me miss and appreciate my dad.

written by  roel krabbendam on February 3, 2007 from Tamanrasset, Algeria
from the travel blog: Harmattan
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1. Laptop: Yes, this blog is possible in part because I bought the very tiny, very expensive, and truly wonderful Sony Vaio VGN-TXN15P from Circuit City in Natick, Massachusetts. It weighs just over 2 pounds, measures something like 8” x 10” x 1”, and easily fits into my bike bags. It has a single Intel Centrino processor so it is not the fastest machine on the street, but it comfortably handles the applications I use (Explorer, Word, and my camera software primarily) and it is loaded with connectivity options that make internet access in all kinds of situations a real breeze. I have walked into hotels in Tunisia and picked up the internet wirelessly, and I have reconfigured plug-in connections with a minimum of dumb fumbling in many internet cafes since. I generally plug my own computer into internet café wires to simplify transfer to the blog of my photos and essays, which I typically prepare ahead of time. I back-up all my stuff on SD cards but SD slots have not been available. I get 3-4 hours out of the battery, which isn’t exactly awesome but has proved sufficient so far. I originally considered a smaller and much more durable unit with 11 hours of battery life made for the US military, but it didn’t support SD cards and it didn’t have a CD drive, both of which I considered vital. I wanted the machine to be useful after as well as during the trip (assuming it survives!). The machine resides in a padded carrying case Polly and I found at The Container Store in Natick, Massachusetts.
2. Solar Collector: An important criterion for all of my electronic devices was that they run on AA batteries: easy to carry, easy to replace, easy to find everywhere. Some devices like the laptop were only available with proprietary batteries however, and for them I purchased a solar collector over the internet from Real Goods/Gaiam in Colorado. It rolls up into a 4” diameter, 15” long tube and delivers a charge...slowly. I haven’t used the collector yet because the trip has evolved into something much less remote than what I had originally conceived, but may yet do so in Niger.
3. Camera 1: I originally thought this trip would make a great video, and found a tiny Samsung video camera with additional remote I could bolt onto my bike helmet. It also takes stills and plays music I have stored on an SD card. I discovered, however, that finding video content of any interest is incredibly difficult, that MPEGs are of limited quality, and that taking videos really isolates you from what you are capturing. It is very difficult to both engage in an activity and film it at the same time. I ended up talking to some professional film people and taking a lot of Very Boring Video before recognizing that the blog would be my medium, and stills the preferred visualization. What I have done with the video camera is photograph bicycle rides through some of the cities and towns I have spent some time in, to communicate something of the flavor of these places in a way that stills cannot. I’m not sure these efforts have been that successful.
4. Camera 2: I bought a 6.0 Megapixel Canon Powershot S3 IS with 12x optical zoom, manual focus option, image stabilization, and very handy and flexible display frame that allows me to take pictures without having to squint through a viewfinder. This is very handy when you want to take pictures surreptitiously of the customs post between Tunisia and Algeria, or when you want to talk to someone and take their picture as well. The software that came with the camera is loaded on my laptop, and it allows me to easily download the photographs, rename them with the date, correct images if required, and stitch together multiple frames. The camera runs on (4) AA lithium batteries and stores everything on the 2 Gigabyte SD cards I brought with me as back-up. After 6 weeks of travel, I just filled up my first SD card. I was originally concerned that 6.0 megapixels would be insufficient, but the leap to 10 megapixels meant investing in an SLR camera which was much bulkier and much more expensive, and I had to admit finally that I was not a professional photographer but a guy on a bike: weight and size triumphed over whether National Geographic would ever come calling. You see the results on the blog (though I’m obviously only showing you the few decent shots and not the reams of dreck). The hardest part, frankly, has been keeping the lenses clean while traveling through so much dust and dirt: any camera would have presented the same problem. My many, many thanks to John (you should have come with me!) Kaplan-Earle, a really talented professional photographer in Concord, Massachusetts, for sharing with me his thoughts on technology and for hooking me up with the good (and patient!) people at Calumet, a photographic equipment outfit in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
5. Satellite Phone: Polly called up WGBH/Channel 2 in Boston and they said they send their people out with the Iridium 9505A: the smallest and easiest phone on the market with a satellite network spanning the entire globe. The unit costs between $1500 and $1800 (making it the most expensive unit on the market as well) and I found calling rates ranging from $1.00 to $1.30 depending on the service provider. 28 years ago, a postcard every three months was all my parents got, to their extreme discomfort (sorry mom!). I’m a husband and father (and son!) this time around, and daily calls are imperative. Weighed this way, the cost in dollars is meaningless. I purchased a data kit with the phone and it allows me to access the internet over the phone. I tried this in Tunisia and discovered this was painfully slow, with lots of dropped connectivity. I have relied instead on hotel and internet café access so far, though this has sometimes meant a few days between blog updates. I hope the audience is patient. One alternative was to buy a BGAN portable satellite dish. They cost about $2400 and are a bit bigger and heavier, but supposedly give great internet access and presumably, internet phone service. Size and weight proved decisive in my case, however. I have heard but cannot verify that the Iridium network, including 12 satellites orbiting the earth, may be suffering financial problems and may even be taken off the air (I need another month, people): if so, my sincere condolences to the investors. Ouch!
6. GPS: I mapped my original route using Google Earth, purchasing the $25 upgrade from the free version to allow me the mapping function. Google Earth resolution was sufficient to recognize all of the paved portions of my route (though I naturally wasn’t concerned about navigating those) and most of the dirt pistes. I also culled waypoints from an excellent book on the Sahara by an Englishman named Chris Scott, who has traveled extensively by motorcycle throughout the desert. Sometimes I had to map a variety of possible routes where the pistes were hard to recognize. The software that came with the GPS unit, along with a little computer routine I downloaded via the internet, allowed me to translate my Google Earth maps into routes recognizable by the GPS device. I purchased a Magellan Explorist 210 from REI in Natick, Massachusetts (Yes, I spent a LOT of money in Natick, Massachusetts) because of its small size, because it runs on AA batteries and because it stored the right number of routes and waypoints per route for my application. The device also serves as my watch. I was originally very interested in a very small GPS device made by Garmin especially for cycling, but it was designed more for training and less for really long trips like this one. Because Tunisia nixed my passage south, and because Algeria required a guide, I may not use the GPS device at all on this trip. I brought paper maps and Google Earth printouts as backup.
7. Transformers: Travelling presents two problems for electronic equipment: plug configuration and voltage. Brookstone solved both with a fairly elegant little unit that offers 4 different plug shapes and either 110V or 220V input. I also bought a transformer with a cigarette lighter plug from Kensington allowing me to recharge my laptop and other electronics from a car. That unit also comes with every possible wall plug configuration, and with the special Sony adaptor serves as a backup to my regular laptop plug.
8. Bicycle Computer: A bicycle computer would have allowed me to track my speed and distance traveled more easily than a GPS device, but I decided not to buy one at all. I figured the GPS device would be good enough, and I kept thinking of that trip 28 years ago with almost no electronic equipment at all…enough was enough.
9. Ziplock Bags: Everything but the laptop and solar collector resides in one: so far, so good.

written by  roel krabbendam on February 3, 2007 from Tamanrasset, Algeria
from the travel blog: Harmattan
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