03.03.10:

You can’t do a lap of Africa. It’s impossible, I think. You could try to, as you can try to get across the Darien Gap that separates Central and South America, but you’d be very lucky to make it. You see you can go like this (off the top of my head): Morocco > Western Sahara > Maurtania > Senegal > Gambia > Senegal > Guinea-Bissau > Guinea > Sierra Leone> Liberia > Cote d’Ivoire > Ghana > Togo > Benin > Nigeria > Cameroon > Gabon > Congo > DR Congo > Angola > Namibia > South Africa > Swaziland > Mozambique > Malawi > Tanzania > Kenya > Ethiopia > Sudan > Egypt > Libya > Tunisia > Algeria…

But then you’d get stuck in Algeria… the border between it and Morocco is closed, has been for years, and is very unlikely to open any time in the future. You could probably make it through to Western Sahara, but there are so many Moroccan police checkpoints there, I think the only way you could do it would be with forged papers (never a good idea). Which is a shame, as driving a lap of Africa could become the new adventure holiday extravaganza.

If you’re frickin’ insane.

I guess your best bet would be to come over on the ferry from Spain to Morocco and go back on the ferry from Tunisia to Italy and just leave Algeria out of the equation. Which is a shame as the people of Algeria would probably quite like to see you.

I got to the embassy first thing in the morning and handed over my passport and another thirty quid. Things were looking good. I had to wait an hour or so (typical) but presently the lady returned with a my passport, and in it was my visa, the illusive access-all-areas pass to Algeria.

I rushed back to Dja’s place to pick up some stuff, and then (after a major argument with my taxi driver who purposely took me all around the houses) I jumped in a louage back to the bloomin’ Algerian border for the THIRD time of asking. I didn’t want to be hanging around, so as soon as I arrived in Tabarka I was in a cab and on the border. I got there at about 3pm.

The border between Tunisia and Algeria is up in the mountains and boy was it cold and wet and miserable. The Tunisian border guards laughed at me – silly English bloke going back and forth. The jolly Algerian border guy who spoke English was excited to see me, but a little perplexed as to why I could just, you know, extend my visa. I told him that I was just as perplexed as he was. He asked me how long I was staying. I tried to explain that I’d only be here for a few hours, but he was having none of it – he had already set me up to get a lift in a shared taxi to the town of El Kala, a few miles down the road. It dawned on me that I was going to have to bite the bullet and stay the night. After all this palaver, if I left tonight they would think I was up to something, and I have no intention of being thrown in an Algerian detention centre.

THUMP! Down came the entry stamp. I was in.

Halfway to El Kala we got stopped by the Algerian security forces. ‘Oh god, here we go’ I thought, wishing I had got out the taxi 100 metres down the road and walked straight back to Tunisia. They took me out of the car and took me to a small building at the side of the road and asked me a ton of questions. For some reason they were completely convinced I was an American, so my British passport didn’t half weird them out. Yes folks – my LAST Francophone African country and LO AND BEHOLD I get a ton of grief of the Powers That Be. What a SURPRISE!

Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea, Cameroon, Congo, Djibouti and now Algeria… what is with the old French colonies, man? I can see the meeting of the Algerian Liberation Army in the 1950s:

REG: What have the French ever done for us eh?

Barry puts his hand up.

BARRY: Squat toilets?

REG: Yeah, well, they did do that…

STAN: Introduced dizzying levels of bureaucracy?

REG: Okay, bureaucracy… and…?

JUSTINE: Unjustified arrogance?

REG: Fine. Okay. Apart from the squat toilets, the dizzying levels of bureaucracy and the unjustified arrogance, WHAT have the French ever done for us?

STAN: Incompetent plumbing?

After half and hour they let me go and I arrived in El Kala before nightfall, checking into the Marsa hotel. My room smelt of effluent and the television only had one channel, but for four quid including breakfast I wasn’t going to start complaining. Something you should know about Algeria – everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) closes at 6pm. I went out at seven to try and find a bite to eat – all I found was a ghost town. I wandered about in the dark for about an hour before I stumbled over a little café which was showing the football – a pre-World Cup friendly between Serbia and Algeria. Serbia won 3-0. Bodes well for England eh?

I grabbed a hamburger (traditional Algerian dish I guess) and after the final whistle, returned to my lonely hotel room and fell fast asleep, dreaming of the day when I can tick the last that one last country off my ‘Africa’ list. At this rate, that day may well be many months away.