Agadez to Tamanrasset
Wednesday 21st December
We got up early to go to the internet café and print off Barbara and Lucas’s invitation from the Algerian agency. This wasn’t going to be simple as John could not access his email account properly. John had phoned Algeria at 7:30 to get them to send the email to Lucas and my email accounts. However, the emails in Algeria this morning were not getting through. Faxes from Algeria to Agadez did not seem to be getting through either and not many places had faxes because of the dust. We went to the Algerian Consulate. Claudia of the Algerian agency had offered to talk directly with the Consulate if we rang her and passed the phone to the Consulate. She’d tried but couldn’t get through to the Algerian Consulate directly. The problem was, the woman at the Consulate refused to speak to her on the phone and said we needed a copy of the invite to proceed with the visas. Lucas realized the only possibility of getting the invite would be if someone in England could open John’s email account and forward the invite to Lucas or my email account. With a couple of phone calls this was achieved and printed off at the internet café and we rushed back to the consulate. Barbara and Lucas visa application was not acceptable in English so they rewrote it in French. John and I headed back to the hotel to start packing up ready to check out of the hotel and leave. But Barbara and Lucas returned 5 minutes later. The Consulate had refused their visa applications because it had to be done in your home country. It may be possible to get a visa in the Capital, Niamey, over a 1000 km away. Barbara was upset – the applications had taken the majority of their time in Agadez, they’d spent more money on getting an extended multiple entry visas to Niger and all the running around had been for nothing. It wasn’t possible to speak to anyone more senior at the Consulate and it was as if the woman at the Consulate had led them to believe it may be possible and enjoyed giving them the run around. This had brought the traveling with Lucas and Barbara to an abrupt end. We needed to leave today to make the Algerian border by lunchtime tomorrow. Lucas managed to quickly copy his entire photo collection for us – no small task with the amount of photos he takes (about 3000) and this will be quite a few evenings worth of entertainment for us. He also copied some digital maps for us and they gave us a bottle of Spanish red wine for Christmas. We gave him the old version of the Chris Scott book with waypoints for Mali and Mauritania. I wondered if I should leave my mobile phone with Barbara. Then we had a number to ring for our interpreter and negotiator when we got into trouble! Hopefully it will turn out to be a blessing in disguise. They have to be back by Feb 15th, so this now gives them more time in Mali and Mauritania. I think Algeria will be interesting for the scenery, but we may not necessarily meet too many people and the less Arabic, more French Africa does seem more vibrant.
We enjoyed a few final beers together. The Dutchies had also returned to say goodbye. They were heading off to the Air Mountains for a week before heading south to Benin, Togo and Ghana before returning to Mali.
We left late in the afternoon and after traveling a short distance we knew it would be dark before we reached Arlit. We would need an early start the next morning to do the 200km desert drive to the border where we were meeting our guide. We survived the first checkpoint without Barbara – this one was an 80 pence peage. At Arlit we got through the checkpoint – there were a few sites lit up – probably work compounds for the uranium mines and we struggled to find the centre for a hotel. We asked for the hotel with the better write up in the guide. We were shown to a building which had a room with just one double mattress piled against the wall and it really didn’t look to be still functioning as a hotel! So we headed to the other ‘grubber’ hotel. We realized we didn’t really have any choice. This was the worst hotel we’d stayed in! It seemed to be a pattern. The night before we met Lucas and Barbara we stayed in our worst hotel in Tunisia and now the day we left them we ended up here. The signs weren’t good when they had to run off and get a light bulb for the 2nd room. Bathroom pictured - a shower did not seem a good option.
The hotel owner took us to the central police station to register. The Arlit checkpoint had also told us we needed to do this. As we registered Steve was looking at the 3 cells behind the desk to see if they offered better accommodation. The smell wasn’t very good though. One of the policeman mentioned Tottenham in addition to David Beckham. Tottenham’s second recognition in Niger.
We returned to the hotel for a beer and omlette and chips before retiring for a brief nights sleep. At 1:30 we switched on the fan which only worked on the highest speed so was like sleeping next to a helicopter. But John felt reassured that this would blow away all the insects that were eating him.
Thursday 22nd December
We were up by 6:30 – it didn’t take long to get ready to leave. Arlit really demonstrated to me how poor Niger is. Arlit is the main town for the Uranium mines which has been Niger’s main export resource. When I asked the hotel owner how many people worked in the mines he said about 800. Since Chernobyl it was easy to imagine this town had only declin
ed. We got some fresh bread and drove a few kilometers out of town past the mines to find a better spot for breakfast. As we drove to the border we passed several groups of people desperate for water and food. This was the first time we had seen this in Niger. We gave out a couple of bottles of water but weren’t really prepared for this. We also passed a broken down truck where they just wanted bread and water. There were quite a number of car wrecks. I asked John if we could turn round so I could take a picture of one, but in doing this we got stuck and there was lots of foul language. So I’d better stick this photo on the website to make it worth the effort. I was ready Michael Palin’s Sahara book. In the
absence of guide books for Algeria this was about the most informative book. I had just read about Moktar ben Moktar or the glass eyed one that acts as a terrorist stealing 4 by 4s, hijacking tourists when a Toyoto appeared from the dunes to the right and started heading at high speed towards us. John wasn’t keen to stop, but we didn’t have much chance in going faster than this. John’s knowledge of French is a few swear words and voulez vous coucher avec moi ce soir, but I attempted to find out what they were asking. I heard demander and du pain, but no not du pain, but en panne. But they obviously weren’t broken down but he was loosing patience with my lack of French and decided to try Steve. Steve worked out they were looking for a broken down car and fortunately both Kathy and John remembered seeing the car a few kilometers back. We continued on the main piste and managed to miss a couple of waypoints. The second one was the Niger Assamaka border post, so we used the GPS to get within 350m of it and still couldn’t see it. I checked I put in the right numbers and was quite amazed at the description being a quite busy checkpoint. Without any other waypoint I thought the chance of finding it were slim, so we headed to the Algerian border post. We headed in to the checkpoint and Steve got stuck in the sand outside. No chance of a high speed dash past this one. We handed in our passports, and enjoyed some lunch in the shadow of our car. There were a lot of trucks full of sacks of grain coming through and we wandered if it was aid. But it
didn’t have the typically big labels stating the donor country. Each lorry seemed to have to bring in one sack for inspection and they looked very heavy. The border procedures took 2.5 hours. It was hard to see what was taking so much time and we weren’t being asked many questions. I soon finished Michael Palin’s account of Algeria. They asked John to show them where the chassis number was on his car and after he failed this test they obviously decided not to bother asking any questions about the contents of his car or searching it. We were then free to go with our Tuareg guide Sleaman. Steve warned him that we didn’t drive fast but at the end of the day John thought Steve had met his Nemesis as this guy drove slower than him. We passed lots more car wrecks. This had been unique to this route. On other stretches of desert such as Libya to Agadez we only passed many camel skeletons burnt white by the sun. Here the camels had been replaced by cars. The sunset was spectacular this evening. We didn’t appear to be too far from the main piste and we could see some headlights and heard quite a few sounds of lorries which sounded like they were carrying empty drums.
Friday 23rd December
At 7:00 it began to sound like we’d camped near the M25. But John recognized the sound as dozers and road construction. We never actually saw the work as we bared north to meet up with the piste, but sound can travel far in the desert. About 60km from Tamanrasset – shortened to Tam we reached the tarmac. This was in pretty poor condition and a worse ride than the piste. We arrived at Tarahist, Claudia and Moktar’s place late afternoon, a stunning setting with the backdrop of mountains, terracotta buildings and interesting plants. There are typically Christmassy poinsettias, but I guess in a more natural habitat, as the size of trees, they seem to last a bit longer than the UK. They have a pet dog – the first pet variety Dillon and George have met, so this caused a lot of noise. We enjoyed a cup of coffee and homemade biscuits while Claudia fed the baby goat. They also have a monkey – not their own choice – a gift which arrived while they were away. We enjoyed some home cooking – noodles, meat and aubergines, cooked delicately that they tasted like expensive mushrooms. Claudia joked about Tom Shepherd – an English guy Michael Palin met touring around the Hoggar Mountains who at over 70 likes visiting this remote area and will go days at a time driving around the mountains in his white Mercedes not seeing anyone. Claudia has seen him in the last month. He manages to get around the restrictions of needing guides for Algeria. When he was visiting last, the Police as In Salah tried to make him join a convoy. But he said he wouldn’t go faster than 60 km an hour, so it didn’t take long to lose them. We went to bed at 9:30 – no longer used to the late nights!
Saturday 24th December
After enjoying a nice late breakfast we headed into town for a spot of shopping. Kathy got into the spirit of this quickly finding a few nice items to buy. We headed to the hotel for lunch so we could enjoy a nice bottle of wine, but not eat too much to spoil our appetite for the Christmas Eve meal with the newly arrived French guests this evening. We headed to an internet café. The first one was having trouble with the internet, and after 40 minutes of not being able to modify anything on my blogsite, but fortunately having a book to read so I was not too impatient, I gave up.
A French couple staying here who have just returned from walking 100 km in the Hoggar Mountains said the temperature got down to -7 at night and there was ice on their tent supports. This evening we went through a rough itinerary for the next 10 days in the Hoggar and Tassili mountains.
We enjoyed a great meal from Claudia. We asked why couscous tastes so different from what we cook and she explained that you have to steam it 3 times. John is trying to leave me here for some cookery lessons. We finished with some great homemade biscuits before what was to be our latest night in quite some time – 11:00!
We got up early to go to the internet café and print off Barbara and Lucas’s invitation from the Algerian agency. This wasn’t going to be simple as John could not access his email account properly. John had phoned Algeria at 7:30 to get them to send the email to Lucas and my email accounts. However, the emails in Algeria this morning were not getting through. Faxes from Algeria to Agadez did not seem to be getting through either and not many places had faxes because of the dust. We went to the Algerian Consulate. Claudia of the Algerian agency had offered to talk directly with the Consulate if we rang her and passed the phone to the Consulate. She’d tried but couldn’t get through to the Algerian Consulate directly. The problem was, the woman at the Consulate refused to speak to her on the phone and said we needed a copy of the invite to proceed with the visas. Lucas realized the only possibility of getting the invite would be if someone in England could open John’s email account and forward the invite to Lucas or my email account. With a couple of phone calls this was achieved and printed off at the internet café and we rushed back to the consulate. Barbara and Lucas visa application was not acceptable in English so they rewrote it in French. John and I headed back to the hotel to start packing up ready to check out of the hotel and leave. But Barbara and Lucas returned 5 minutes later. The Consulate had refused their visa applications because it had to be done in your home country. It may be possible to get a visa in the Capital, Niamey, over a 1000 km away. Barbara was upset – the applications had taken the majority of their time in Agadez, they’d spent more money on getting an extended multiple entry visas to Niger and all the running around had been for nothing. It wasn’t possible to speak to anyone more senior at the Consulate and it was as if the woman at the Consulate had led them to believe it may be possible and enjoyed giving them the run around. This had brought the traveling with Lucas and Barbara to an abrupt end. We needed to leave today to make the Algerian border by lunchtime tomorrow. Lucas managed to quickly copy his entire photo collection for us – no small task with the amount of photos he takes (about 3000) and this will be quite a few evenings worth of entertainment for us. He also copied some digital maps for us and they gave us a bottle of Spanish red wine for Christmas. We gave him the old version of the Chris Scott book with waypoints for Mali and Mauritania. I wondered if I should leave my mobile phone with Barbara. Then we had a number to ring for our interpreter and negotiator when we got into trouble! Hopefully it will turn out to be a blessing in disguise. They have to be back by Feb 15th, so this now gives them more time in Mali and Mauritania. I think Algeria will be interesting for the scenery, but we may not necessarily meet too many people and the less Arabic, more French Africa does seem more vibrant.
We enjoyed a few final beers together. The Dutchies had also returned to say goodbye. They were heading off to the Air Mountains for a week before heading south to Benin, Togo and Ghana before returning to Mali.
We left late in the afternoon and after traveling a short distance we knew it would be dark before we reached Arlit. We would need an early start the next morning to do the 200km desert drive to the border where we were meeting our guide. We survived the first checkpoint without Barbara – this one was an 80 pence peage. At Arlit we got through the checkpoint – there were a few sites lit up – probably work compounds for the uranium mines and we struggled to find the centre for a hotel. We asked for the hotel with the better write up in the guide. We were shown to a building which had a room with just one double mattress piled against the wall and it really didn’t look to be still functioning as a hotel! So we headed to the other ‘grubber’ hotel. We realized we didn’t really have any choice. This was the worst hotel we’d stayed in! It seemed to be a pattern. The night before we met Lucas and Barbara we stayed in our worst hotel in Tunisia and now the day we left them we ended up here. The signs weren’t good when they had to run off and get a light bulb for the 2nd room. Bathroom pictured - a shower did not seem a good option.
The hotel owner took us to the central police station to register. The Arlit checkpoint had also told us we needed to do this. As we registered Steve was looking at the 3 cells behind the desk to see if they offered better accommodation. The smell wasn’t very good though. One of the policeman mentioned Tottenham in addition to David Beckham. Tottenham’s second recognition in Niger.
We returned to the hotel for a beer and omlette and chips before retiring for a brief nights sleep. At 1:30 we switched on the fan which only worked on the highest speed so was like sleeping next to a helicopter. But John felt reassured that this would blow away all the insects that were eating him.
Thursday 22nd December
We were up by 6:30 – it didn’t take long to get ready to leave. Arlit really demonstrated to me how poor Niger is. Arlit is the main town for the Uranium mines which has been Niger’s main export resource. When I asked the hotel owner how many people worked in the mines he said about 800. Since Chernobyl it was easy to imagine this town had only declin
ed. We got some fresh bread and drove a few kilometers out of town past the mines to find a better spot for breakfast. As we drove to the border we passed several groups of people desperate for water and food. This was the first time we had seen this in Niger. We gave out a couple of bottles of water but weren’t really prepared for this. We also passed a broken down truck where they just wanted bread and water. There were quite a number of car wrecks. I asked John if we could turn round so I could take a picture of one, but in doing this we got stuck and there was lots of foul language. So I’d better stick this photo on the website to make it worth the effort. I was ready Michael Palin’s Sahara book. In the
absence of guide books for Algeria this was about the most informative book. I had just read about Moktar ben Moktar or the glass eyed one that acts as a terrorist stealing 4 by 4s, hijacking tourists when a Toyoto appeared from the dunes to the right and started heading at high speed towards us. John wasn’t keen to stop, but we didn’t have much chance in going faster than this. John’s knowledge of French is a few swear words and voulez vous coucher avec moi ce soir, but I attempted to find out what they were asking. I heard demander and du pain, but no not du pain, but en panne. But they obviously weren’t broken down but he was loosing patience with my lack of French and decided to try Steve. Steve worked out they were looking for a broken down car and fortunately both Kathy and John remembered seeing the car a few kilometers back. We continued on the main piste and managed to miss a couple of waypoints. The second one was the Niger Assamaka border post, so we used the GPS to get within 350m of it and still couldn’t see it. I checked I put in the right numbers and was quite amazed at the description being a quite busy checkpoint. Without any other waypoint I thought the chance of finding it were slim, so we headed to the Algerian border post. We headed in to the checkpoint and Steve got stuck in the sand outside. No chance of a high speed dash past this one. We handed in our passports, and enjoyed some lunch in the shadow of our car. There were a lot of trucks full of sacks of grain coming through and we wandered if it was aid. But it
didn’t have the typically big labels stating the donor country. Each lorry seemed to have to bring in one sack for inspection and they looked very heavy. The border procedures took 2.5 hours. It was hard to see what was taking so much time and we weren’t being asked many questions. I soon finished Michael Palin’s account of Algeria. They asked John to show them where the chassis number was on his car and after he failed this test they obviously decided not to bother asking any questions about the contents of his car or searching it. We were then free to go with our Tuareg guide Sleaman. Steve warned him that we didn’t drive fast but at the end of the day John thought Steve had met his Nemesis as this guy drove slower than him. We passed lots more car wrecks. This had been unique to this route. On other stretches of desert such as Libya to Agadez we only passed many camel skeletons burnt white by the sun. Here the camels had been replaced by cars. The sunset was spectacular this evening. We didn’t appear to be too far from the main piste and we could see some headlights and heard quite a few sounds of lorries which sounded like they were carrying empty drums.Friday 23rd December
At 7:00 it began to sound like we’d camped near the M25. But John recognized the sound as dozers and road construction. We never actually saw the work as we bared north to meet up with the piste, but sound can travel far in the desert. About 60km from Tamanrasset – shortened to Tam we reached the tarmac. This was in pretty poor condition and a worse ride than the piste. We arrived at Tarahist, Claudia and Moktar’s place late afternoon, a stunning setting with the backdrop of mountains, terracotta buildings and interesting plants. There are typically Christmassy poinsettias, but I guess in a more natural habitat, as the size of trees, they seem to last a bit longer than the UK. They have a pet dog – the first pet variety Dillon and George have met, so this caused a lot of noise. We enjoyed a cup of coffee and homemade biscuits while Claudia fed the baby goat. They also have a monkey – not their own choice – a gift which arrived while they were away. We enjoyed some home cooking – noodles, meat and aubergines, cooked delicately that they tasted like expensive mushrooms. Claudia joked about Tom Shepherd – an English guy Michael Palin met touring around the Hoggar Mountains who at over 70 likes visiting this remote area and will go days at a time driving around the mountains in his white Mercedes not seeing anyone. Claudia has seen him in the last month. He manages to get around the restrictions of needing guides for Algeria. When he was visiting last, the Police as In Salah tried to make him join a convoy. But he said he wouldn’t go faster than 60 km an hour, so it didn’t take long to lose them. We went to bed at 9:30 – no longer used to the late nights!
Saturday 24th December
After enjoying a nice late breakfast we headed into town for a spot of shopping. Kathy got into the spirit of this quickly finding a few nice items to buy. We headed to the hotel for lunch so we could enjoy a nice bottle of wine, but not eat too much to spoil our appetite for the Christmas Eve meal with the newly arrived French guests this evening. We headed to an internet café. The first one was having trouble with the internet, and after 40 minutes of not being able to modify anything on my blogsite, but fortunately having a book to read so I was not too impatient, I gave up.
A French couple staying here who have just returned from walking 100 km in the Hoggar Mountains said the temperature got down to -7 at night and there was ice on their tent supports. This evening we went through a rough itinerary for the next 10 days in the Hoggar and Tassili mountains.
We enjoyed a great meal from Claudia. We asked why couscous tastes so different from what we cook and she explained that you have to steam it 3 times. John is trying to leave me here for some cookery lessons. We finished with some great homemade biscuits before what was to be our latest night in quite some time – 11:00!
posted by Tanya at 3:23 pm
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