Algeria and Mauritania are two of the most obscure nations on the planet, and among the least visited. No guidebooks in English exist for either country (other than a super rare Bradt Algeria guide published back in 2008), and online accounts of travel there are few and far between. Planning for these nations was a bit tricky – especially due to the limited time frame in which I’d be traveling. Algeria and Mauritania are huge countries, and it’s never a safe bet to rely on public transportation in nations where the changing winds can literally interfere with getting from point A to B. On top of this, I was nearly certain the trip wouldn’t happen until about ten days before my departure: My passport had been sitting in bureaucratic limbo at the Algerian Consulate in New York City for over two months, my visa only being approved a hair more than a week before my scheduled departure.
“New” Mosque, Ksour, Bordj Bou Arreridj, Algeria 
Camel Market, Nouakchott, Mauritania 
Houari Boumediene University of Science and Technology, Bab Ezzouar, Algiers, Algeria
Needless to say, the trip was an unprecedented hit.
Below is my day by day itinerary from the trip, including the sights visited, friends made, and meals eaten (among other things). Not meant as an end all be all itinerary (though I would suggest it!), I hope this post illuminates some of the reasons why I have returned to the USA with a much altered mindset and perspective.
Day 1: Seattle to Houston, USA to Istanbul, Turkey
Galata Tower, Istanbul 
Street mussels…maybe not 
Our favorite doner kebab place from our first visit in 2014
I am currently on a travel spending freeze. At the beginning of 2018 we committed to never paying for international plane tickets, and thus the inconvenient starting leg of my trip was born. I purchased a Star Alliance award ticket on the United portal that routed me through Houston (where I had a seven hour layover), and Istanbul (where I had a sixteen hour layover), before finally arriving in Algiers. Istanbul was a real treat to revisit, as I hadn’t been there since December 2014. I found a cheap hotel on booking.com at the airport before taxiing into town. By serendipity, a friend I had met in Eritrea the year before happened to be in Istanbul at the same time with a classmate, so we caught up over kebabs in the shadow of the Galata Tower.
Day 2: Istanbul, Turkey to Algiers, Algeria
Whitewash fantasy along Didouche Mourad 
One of many friends I would make in Algeria
I didn’t get much sleep before my 4am airport pickup to make my 8am flight to Algiers. What was most immediately fascinating to me was the proportion of Chinese people on my flight between the two cities. China is investing heavily in Algeria (among other places in Africa in a near indiscriminate manner), and thus send many of its own workers to complete vast infrastructure projects across the country. So, while I was on a flight with a majority of Chinese people to get into the country, I didn’t see a single Chinese person after I’d entered.
I was exhausted on Day 2, so protracted my city tour of Algiers after walking through its casbah and gawking at the concrete dream that is the Martyr’s Monument. It was a great intro to the city, but I was in dire need of a solid 12 hours of sleep to get a good head start on what was a jam-packed trip.
Day 3: Bordj Bou Arreridj Province, Algeria
Picture perfect Bordj Zemoura, one of the dreamier landscapes I’ve ever laid eyes upon 
One of three lunches of the day, actually 
Young and old in Old Ksour, high in the Atlas Mountains
Youcef, my driver in the capital, picked me up bright and early for our day trip to Bordj Bou Arreridj province, about three hours and change from the capital. What seemed like a random choice was, embarrassingly, born from Instagram. I had seen pictures of a medieval town carved from the side of the mountain and had to see it for myself. The day included stops in many towns in the region, each more breathtaking than the last. Bordj Bou Arreridj also gave me my first real taste of Algerian hospitality – over the course of the day we had three unplanned lunches, several tea breaks, and made friends with various mayors and dignitaries, all of whom had come out for the tourist’s arrival.
I should have worn nicer clothes.
Day 4: Algiers to Ghardaia, Algeria
In the morning I met up with a friend from Couchsurfing to get an honest take on Algeria from a young person. My companion spoke frankly about the current political climate and how much the youth desires change to a more truly democratic system. With over 50% of the population under 30, there is an increasingly significant proportion of the population with little to no memory of the country’s brutal civil war in the 90s, and as such operate without the fear of another similarly violent struggle. My time in Algeria was marked by the differences in opinion of the young and old – the young willing to fight for freedom at whatever cost, while the older more fearful, the memories of the war in the 1990s still fresh.
I caught my flight to Ghardaia, the gateway to the Sahara in the M’Zab Valley, at around 8pm, and fell asleep upon my arrival to the Hotel Oasis to the raspy demands of the hotel cat for a snack.
Day 5: Ghardaia and the M’Zab Valley, Algeria
Walking through the thousand year old citadel of El Atteuf, Ghardaia 
Pattern-gasm at my accommodation’s outdoor reception 
The main Ghardaia square at dusk
I woke up early to catch the sunrise over the desert with Abdallah, my guide in the M’Zab Valley. Ghardaia is a concentration of villages, many founded by Mozabite tribes before 1000CE, built strategically on hilltops around an expansive palm oasis. I spent the morning exploring the hilltop citadels of El Atteuf, Ghardaia, and Beni Isguen before seeking a couple hours respite from the Saharan sun. Ghardaia is a particularly interesting place because of its ethnic composition. The town was once exclusively Mozabite peoples, who fled to the region to escape persecution from warring tribes north in the Tell. Today the city is a major stop on the trans-Saharan migration path for Sub-Saharan Africans seeking to ultimately land in Europe. Migrant populations from nations like Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger are almost as populous there as Algerian-born nationals.
Day 6: Ghardaia to Constantine, Algeria
Was shockingly not admonished for taking this photo 
Downtown Constantine in fog
My flights departing for first Algiers, then Constantine were unremarkable in the best way possible. I arrived to Constantine on a Friday, the Muslim day of rest and the days with the most active anti-government protests. The ibis Hotel, where I was staying, is located right in the center of the city, and while I enjoyed olives among rowdy Tunisian soccer fans inside the hotel, I could hear the demonstrations happening just outside the walls. Being in Algeria during the largest protests in nearly twenty years was fascinating, and all of the locals I met were surprisingly open about their views on Bouteflika and his seeking a fifth term. I didn’t do much but lounge around the hotel on my first day in Constantine, but rather soaked in the revolutionary noise outside and planned my activities for the days to follow.
Day 7: Constantine, Algeria
Emir Abdelkader Mosque in Constantine – Just pushed from third to fourth largest mosque in Africa by the beast currently under construction in Algiers 
Physics-wise, Constantine is a nearly impossible city
I had originally planned to visit Timgad, a well-preserved Roman historical site, on this day, but scrapped it in favor of western-standard amenities at my hotel. Truth be told, I’m not super into ancient sites, whether castles in the Balkans, monasteries in the Caucasus, or Roman ruins for that matter. Maybe it’s a character flaw, but I prefer to stay in cities and talk to people – I’m far more interested in getting a greater depth of knowledge about a place as it currently exists than in extrapolating details from piles of rocks. (OK, maybe that’s harsh)
I met Hani, a local boxer with a thirst for knowledge unlike most I’d met previously, at home or on my travels. We chatted for hours about our experiences in like, mine as a gay man, traveler, and introvert, and his as a pro boxer, and as someone yearning for greater breadth of experience. We visited Emir Abdelkader Mosque, easily as imposing as the Blue Mosque in Istanbul – but with no people – and had a picnic on a hill above the Constantine Airport to watch planes land and take off. My talks with Hani gave me important perspective on my life and privilege – Hani wants nothing more than to see the world (especially Las Vegas, a mecca for professional fighters), but is held back by my own country’s racist visa policies.
Day 8: Constantine, Algeria
I finally saw the bulk of Constantine on my last day there. Constantine should be one of the great wonders of the world, built high above a river valley on top of 200m of sheer granite. But given Algeria’s attraction-non-promotion policy on tourism, no one knows about it. We crossed some of the city’s famous bridges (not recommended for the acrophobic), and had a delicious lunch of charcoura (think lasagna with north african spices, chunky veggies, and pasta with the delicacy of phyllo dough) before heading to what was for me Constantine’s main attraction: the Mentouri University of Constantine.
Just drool… 
…there’s more on the way
Algeria’s initial siren song came in the form of modernist architecture; upon returning from Brasilia in the November previous, I started doing some due diligence on Oscar Niemeyer. Turns out, once Brasilia was completed, Niemeyer completed several projects, mostly universities, across newly independent Algeria. Mentouri University was one of these, and boy did it deliver just the right dose of concrete. I’ll be writing a separate post on Niemeyer in Algeria, but above are a couple shots to get you drooling.
Day 9: Constantine to Algiers, Algeria
Another gracious couchsurfing host, Fares, greeted me upon my arrival back to Algiers. Meeting Fares was truly a moment of travel serendipity, as he happened to work as a security guard at Niemeyer’s other famous Algerian work, the Houari Boumediene University of Science and Technology. After Mentouri the day before, I didn’t think HBUST could possibly top it, but lo and behold…
Inside the library, giving me the color combination I never knew I needed 
Lecture halls, deserted as all the students were busy protesting Bouteflika’s “fifth mandate”
I shared lunch with Fares and his mother at their home in the distant Algiers suburb of Ain Taya before heading back to central Algiers. Knowing the latter part of my trip would be more physically taxing, I treated myself to a night at a rather swanky hotel: The Hotel Suisse. Built immediately following World War 2, it had all the charm one would expect from a moody colonial era hotel, down to swinging saloon doors disguising one of Algiers’ only bars and a marvelous elevator encapsulated by a giant spiral staircase. I returned to my favorite restaurant of the trip, Le Roi de Loubia (lit. “The King of Beans”) for baguette, beans, and hmiss, a fire-roasted Anaheim pepper and tomato spread, and slept early – only to be awoken by streams of demonstrators in the street, celebrating Bouteflika’s announcement that he would not seek a fifth term.
The celebrations were shortlived, however, as Bouteflika’s puppets announced the very next day that while Boutef would not run, elections would not be happening, either.
Algeria is a powder keg. The last time elections were cancelled in this same manner was in 1992, the straw that broke the camel’s back leading to the incredibly bloody Algerian Civil War. Algerians want so terribly badly to not be the next Syria – and ultimately the decision remains in the hand of the ruling elite and those in their political apparatus, as the citizens are refusing to bow to anything less than sweeping political change.
Day 10: Algiers, Algeria to Casablanca, Morocco
I had a lazy morning in Algiers, working my way down Didouche Mourad, the city’s main thoroughfare, picking up trinkets as I went. The flight from Algiers to Casablanca was quick and easy, though I arrived in Casablanca with my scheduled ride nowhere to be found. A friendly taxi drive me gave me a lift instead, and I was immediately struck by the monumental differences between Algiers and Casablanca. Casablanca seemed far more developed in the Western sense of the word, and for the first time in a week I saw street side advertisements for KFC, McDonald’s, and Pizza Hut (and within minutes of leaving Mohammed V International, at that!). My hotel, on the sketchier fringes of the Old Medina, cost the same per night as the luxurious suite I’d stayed in the night before in Algiers – though I am fond of saying that perfectly adequate is high praise for hotels in Africa. It was novel to see tourists again, and I inhaled a $2.50 pizza margarita before going to bed in the shadow of Hassan II Mosque’s impossibly looming minaret.
Day 11: Casablanca, Morocco to Nouakchott, Mauritania
Ate this 
Pretty much my feelings about Casablanca
I didn’t do much in Casablanca, save interact with countless touts in the Medina, each angling to sell me their wares. Haggling is a skill I’ve developed over the course of many years and on many continents, and I was excited to test my prowess in a place where prices exist in perpetual purgatory. The Casablanca Medina didn’t disappoint in this aspect – though I was unprepared for the unabashed physicality of the act of haggling in Morocco. Handsy haggling is something I am decidedly not fond of, so spent much of my afternoon in the retreat of a coffee shop just outside the old city.
My ride to the airport was especially bumpy, and for the first time ever I thought, “Well, maybe dramamine isn’t going to do it this time…” We arrived to the airport unscathed, and as I’d checked my bags the day before, I proceeded directly to the airport lounge to test my stomach with some opportunistic eating. The flight, again, was short, and I arrived to Nouakchott just before midnight.
Day 12: Nouakchott, Mauritania
Having been made to check a piece of hand luggage in Algiers began my great unraveling. I was the last off my plane to receive my visa on arrival, and by the time I had cleared immigration my bags were the only remaining on the belt. Wrapped heavily in plastic and looking like they’d been through a meat grinder, I feared the worst. I opened my bag to check on my money stash – the money I had to pay my tour guide in Mauritania – to find it flagrantly missing. $1000 USD gone, in an instant.
I hope the baggage handlers in Casablanca had a party.
Car issues also became a theme of the trip. The car that picked me up from the airport had some issue that prevented it from running faster than around 30kph without screaming death rattles, so the ride into Nouakchott proper lasted just over an hour. Then we couldn’t find the hotel. Once we found the hotel, the night watchman didn’t have keys (they had expected me two hours before). It was nearly 5am by the time my head hit the pillow, after which I slept hard.
Mauritanian design inspiration Camel Market, Nouakchott 
Wares at the Marche Capitale
Still bummed when I woke up around 1pm, I gave myself a pep talk and soldiered on. Limame, my volunteer guide for the day took me to visit the camel market (pro tip: don’t wear sandals), and then to the city’s Marche Capitale to look for kitsch.
There’s a lot I didn’t do in Nouakchott – the National Museum and seeing the fishing boats come in at dusk in specific – and although I’m fairly good at suppressing my feelings of FOMO, I wish I’d had more time there. It’s a city that shouldn’t exist, really, on the fringes of the Sahara, without a deep water port like Mauritania’s second city, Nouadhibou. But places like Nouakchott fascinate me – created recently against all known laws of the place to that point. Like Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Sary Mogul, Kyrgyzstan, or Brasilia, Brazil, recently manufactured places with high human density with incredibly unique urban cultures living largely in isolate from their surroundings and in opposition to the area’s cultural legacy.
Day 13: Nouakchott to Terjit Oasis, Mauritania
Socks and sandals to match the occasion
Alioune, my guide and guardian angel in Mauritania, picked me up early to head into the desert. We stocked up on snickers and Fanta and a case of bottled water before starting the 400km drive to Terjit, an oasis in the middle of the Mauritanian Sahara famed for its sprawling palm garden.
That 400km, though, kicked my ass. By the time we reached Terjit I was dizzy, had a headache, and my fingers had swelled like Vienna sausages. I spent about two hours in the shade rehydrating, alternating between water and mint tea, before starting to feel human again. As luck would have it, Alioune and I were the first to arrive to the campsite that day, and thus I was able to snag the room with a view – a tent a 100m scramble up the hillside, overlooking Saharan rock formations from a fairy tale.
Day 14: Terjit Oasis to Chinguetti, Mauritania
One of the concessions I made to keep my Mauritania tour despite my loss of money was to downgrade my transport from 4×4 with driver and guide to, well, Alioune driving me all over the country in his vintage Mercedes. Alas, our trusty steed did not fare too well the desert – after much pushing and cursing, we let her be, and called in help from Atar, capital of the Adrar region and about an hour’s drive from Terjit. A wonderful couple we’d met at camp the night before, Solenne and Toni, offered us two seats in their converted Land Cruiser – we were fortunately both headed in the same direction.
We arrived at dusk to Chinguetti, an 8th Century stone village famous for its libraries of Islamic texts. The four of us headed to the dunes for sunset, and despite the hazy weather, the mood and atmosphere were perfect. We chatted about our travels, life experiences, and hopes for the future. My relationship with Toni and Solenne was one of those serendipitous road friendships, characterized by a quick connection around common interests and general congenial vibe. I remember those types of relationships from traveling when I was younger, but have found them to be fewer and further between as I get older – likely due to the fact that I don’t meet many travelers in the places I visit. The lot of us, plus two other solo tourists at our camp, stayed up late playing Uno and telling stories of experiences in random places around the globe.
Day 15: Chinguetti to Nouakchott, Mauritania
Ancient texts in Chinguetti 
Killer Senegalese lunch in Atar
Alioune and I woke up early and toured one of Chinguetti’s famous libraries. By nine we were bidding our friends adieu from a pickup truck containing two large grown men (myself included) and a driver in the front, Four women, two babies, and two toddlers in the back seat, and many, many goats and Alioune in the bed. Fortunately the driver drove like he stole it, and we arrived in Atar in just over an hour.
From there Alioune took me to his village, an oasis about 15km outside of Atar called Azougi. He gave me a gentle ultimatum, “You will shower here.” I don’t blame him, I hadn’t showered in two countries and was more than a bit ripe despite my disciplined regimen of unscented facewipes from the hippie store back home. While Alioune showered, I drank tea with his Marlboro man of an uncle and watched “Madea’s Big Happy Family,” undubbed, on their satellite TV. Broadcast English was a treat, and I rejoiced bathing in the sound, reclined next to the house patriarch.
It was a simple six to eight hour drive back to Nouakchott, where I would catch the first of many planes home. I stayed hydrated, and wrote out fifteen fiche to distribute at the military checkpoints dotting the highway through the Sahara’s vast expanse. We had only one small hiccup – after a car drove us off the road attempting to pass a truck. We blew a tire, but made quick work of changing it before being on our way again – I was thrilled to put my 1997 Driver’s Education skills to work. Before heading to the airport we stopped at a camp outside of Nouakchott to purchase some fresh camel milk. Alioune emptied any remaining water bottles in the car, and negotiated with the vendors, selling Mauritanian road trip essentials: Cases of water, camel milk, cigarettes, and bootleg cassette tapes. It was a memorable panorama – to one side of me was our desert-toughened steed and Mauritanian Route N1, the nation’s largest freeway, and twenty meters to the left were the tents of nomads, moved to the outskirts of the capital to sell their wares. They had sold out of milk for the day, but invited us to sit with them around a fire while they milked some especially for us. It was silent but for the sound of intermittent cars coming and going from the capital some 10km away. Alioune and I were tired from our trip at breakneck speed, and waited intently, relaxing in the desert air with occasional wafts of livestock or diesel fuel.
We took the milk to go, as my flight was rapidly approaching – Alioune and I said our goodbyes, and I handed him my bottle of camel milk, still ¾ full.
I’ll be publishing more stories from my time in Algeria and Mauritania soon. I had the most transformative experience there, and I’m struggling to find the words to properly describe it. If you enjoy this post and my writing, please share it with your friends on social media.
I’m working hard to become more diligent posting — I still have much to share about my time in Paraguay and Brazil, and countless stories of the aggressive hospitality in Algeria and Mauritania. I also have some exciting news about where the blog and my life are heading in the coming months.
Thank you, as always, for reading – I hope you are as excited to read my stories from my time in Algeria and Mauritania as I am to share them with you.
