Algeria > Back in Djanet

Last night several small animals walked around my tent. I can see fresh tracks all around it. At breakfast, cake is served. The baguette is now five days old and not very tasty anymore. It’s still just about edible if you toast it over the campfire. When we want to leave, it turns out our car is stuck too deep in the sand. It won’t move forward or backward. The other car has already left. Even when we push, the Toyota doesn’t move. Occhi lets air out of the tyres to increase grip. Unfortunately, without success. In the distance we see the other car turning around. They come back. Using a shovel, sand is dug away from the wheels. With more manpower we manage to push the car out of the sand. Now we can finally be on our way. We drive across a broad sandy plain. Numerous tracks criss-cross each other here. After an hour we reach the asphalt road. We follow this for about another hundred kilometres to Djanet. Along the way we pass a few camels. Camels do not live here in the wild; they always belong to a farmer. That’s why you don’t see camels inside the national park.

Algeria - The rock has broken off from the higher rock

Perhaps that is for the best, as they would otherwise eat the last bits of greenery. Suddenly, the vehicles leave the main road and turn onto a track of soft sand. Sometimes they have to keep enough speed to avoid getting stuck. It’s not entirely clear to us why we have left the road. Do they still need to fill some time before lunch? After about half an hour we arrive at a rock formation. On this rock is an image of a crying cow. This is one of the older rock engravings outside the national park and close to Djanet. Near this rock, lunch is served for the last time: a delicious salad with cheese, cucumber, carrot, potatoes, and tomato. This lunch also ends with a small glass of tea. As we approach Djanet, it feels like we are driving farther than the hotel where we stayed last week.

Algeria - A photo with the crew

We were supposed to get a day room in a guesthouse where we could freshen up before tonight’s flight. It turns out we are indeed going to a guesthouse, but not the same hotel as last week. There is a room with a few mattresses on the floor, and a shower and toilet area. Although it’s not exactly what I expected, the shower is perfectly fine to rinse the sand off me. I even manage to wash all the sand out of my hair again. Around dinnertime the crew returns to prepare the evening meal, this time just in the little kitchen. We are served soup, spaghetti, and fruit. After dinner we thank the crew and give them a tip for their services. It is now eight o’clock. At midnight we will be picked up for the flight to Algiers. I lie down on the mattress on the floor to get some sleep. At a quarter to twelve the alarm goes off.