It started off fine, and we ran through some roughish terrain over good enough roads.
But approaching the capital, the police, army and Gendarmerie checks were becoming increasingly frequent and negative.
To the point where we knew we could never make it to Alger and get to the Ferry office on time.
Apparently they were less interested in the national soccer teams, and wanted to know all about us and our luggage. This was going nowhere, and after about the 5th check, all much slower than normal, we decided to cut back to a highway, where only the exits are controlled.
Before we left the coastal roads, we had a spot of lunch, fresh fish, a welcome change from all the chicken.
We discuss our police issues briefly and then decide on the Highway.
Alger like most big cities was quite spread out, and we'd decided to get something with internet, so aimed for the IBIS at the airport. All full. There were other hotels, but they were over 300 Euros per night.
On the advice of a watchman, we headed a little East. Aiming for the coast, we came across a tramway under construction. All the diversions were blocking our general direction, but the workers and traffic people waved us through. Hmm, was this a good idea?
So here we are, two blokes going the opposite direction on a narrow unfinished road next to the fairly high tram tracks. Other cars were backing towards our direction, so I made a move towards and onto the pavement, which was too high to get onto in most places so planned ahead a little. A few seconds later, the first car stopped backing up, the second one drove into the first, while we kept going on the pavement to get past it all as it was very narrow.
Then I managed to find a spot to get on to the tramway, and going slowly we made our way to the beach area.
Suddenly came accross a newish hotel sign, which turned out quite good. Just opened 2 Months ago, we had all the basic comforts.
This was in an old French area, and we quickly jumped into a taxi to get to the Ferry office.
They were helpful enough, but their systems were archaic. They had to manually enter the pricing from a manual calculation by calculator and then repeat a whole bunch of info.
For some reason, the price for Marseille Alger is double that of Marseille Tunis....
Once we decided to pay with Visa (no other means anyway...) they gave us a bad surprise that we had to pay some central bank levy of about 6000 Dinars - 60 Euros - ish.
That killed all our last meal and taxi money, so another issue.
I'd been changing my cash already on the market, so since I was in trouble already with the currency controls, decided to cash in another whopping 10 Euros to get us dinner and a cab back home.
The black market money traders were just all over, and sitting just 20 meters away from the coppers. So obvious I guess the risk was relatively low.
After the Casbah visit mentioned previously we headed back and had a stroll around the old French part.
Restoring was starting to take place, and you could easily picture this place just before the French got kicked out. Charming.
The beer was still on the program, and when we saw the place with the large Stella Artois sign, we looked for a way in. After knocking, a door was opened with a chain on it by a heavyweight doorman, and we entered a place with both a restaurant and a standing bar area, where strangely there were about 5 women with quite a few local men.
Everybody was eyeing us, and the place went kind of silent when we came in.
But a priority is a priority, and rather than sitting in the restaurant, we went for the beer.
I was convinced this was a brothel of some sort, and keen to get out. This was the weirdest place I had been for quite some time.
Strolled back to the hotel for a nightcap of orange juice and diet coke and ready for another big day tomorrow. We found some spare cash we had not declared and did not have any local money for the hotel yet, but figured the pressure of getting paid would sort out this issue quickly.
Not sure if I am sad or happy to leave.
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