Thursday,
1 February 2018
The
bus driver drove as if the devil was after him and we arrived at Gare Routiere
du Caroubier at 03:40 (we’d expected to arrive at 05:00). We debated what to do
and agreed we’d go to my friend’s house instead of waiting until 05:00 or
06:00. There were no vacant seats for us to while away the time (and Algerian
men smoke everywhere even though there are signs prohibiting smoking in the bus
terminal) and I reasoned if we arrived early, we could rest before beginning
the day. We went to find a cab and had to bargain the fare down. Finally, we
got a cab that charged us 500 dinar. Fouzia had written down her location in
French and I showed it to the cabbie.
Well,
when we reached her area, we couldn’t find her house. I had tried calling
Fouzia a few times at the bus station but couldn’t get through. It was strange
because I could send her text messages and receive her replies but not call
her. I asked the cabbie to call Fouzia for us, showing him the number but he
refused. So we went around and around, up one street and out the other,
glancing everywhere. We spent about 20 minutes driving around before we asked
the cabbie to drop us at Hotel Capuccines which is a landmark if I understood
Fouzia’s location in French. Unfortunately, the hotel compound was closed so we
couldn’t enter the compound and head for the lobby.
As
luck would have it, a police car cruised by. They definitely saw us because
they turned around and came to ask. The officer behind the wheel spoke some
English and we explained to him. I then asked if he could call Fouzia and he
asked, ‘On my phone?’ I said yes and explained I couldn’t seem to make any
phone calls. A conversation in French ensued and after a couple of minutes, the
officer ended the conversation and told us to get into the car. We squeezed in
and I asked CT if we were going to be in a lock-up.
The
station was near enough and we were dropped off. Another policeman was in the
station and could speak English too. He chatted with us and was overall very
friendly. We waited for about 20 minutes before Fouzia arrived to fetch us. It
turned out that we had been near to her apartment. Oh well...
We
had a light early breakfast and after performing Suboh prayers, CT and I had a
nap. We woke up two hours later and had a shower then waited for Fouzia to wake
up. I entertained myself by playing with her cat, Minu. Finally, I went to
knock on Fouzia’s room.
We had another breakfast then Imen came over. She would bring us out to lunch today and show us a bit of Algiers. We left after prayers and Imen drove us to Pizza Pino at Sidi Fredj where we had salad and pizza overlooking the Mediterranean. Sidi Fredj is where the French first landed in Algeria. After lunch, Imen drove us back to Algiers and up and down the hills of Algiers, to downtown to the Notre Dame d’Afrique overlooking the Bay of Algiers, to the Maqam Echahid. Algiers has a lot of beautiful white colonial buildings which lend to the city’s nickname Alger la Blanche (Algiers the White) and I was kept busy snapping one photo after another. The hilly terrain and traffic all gave poor CT motion sickness though.
Imen then dropped us at a clinic in Hydra, a
posh neighbourhood, where Fouzia was undergoing some skin treatment. We had a
short wait and then Fouzia drove us to find shops where we could buy some
souvenirs home. Alas, the souvenir shop was closed but we managed to get some
dates, nuts and nougat at a specialty shop. We had to get our shopping done as
everything is closed on Fridays. We then went for an Algerian dinner and then
some gelato before heading back. Fouzia then got a text message from the guide
whom she had engaged to bring us to the Casbah; he had to cancel the tour the
following morning as it was forecast to rain ;’(
Friday, 2 February 2018
I woke up to shower and perform prayers. The
house was quiet and CT and I dozed off again before getting up to finish
packing. We had a late breakfast and stayed in as Fouzia said she had a
headache. I so badly wanted to go to the Casbah but had been advised it isn’t
safe to go on our own. What a shame when we had managed everything else we
planned despite misgivings by even our Algerian friends. Instead, we stayed in
the whole morning. It did rain but more like a drizzle than a downpour. Sigh...
We performed prayers and then had organic
cous cous lunch before leaving for the airport. It didn’t take long to reach
the airport as it was Friday.
We went to browse the shops (unlike in
downtown, shops at the airport operate on Fridays) before dropping off our bags
and collecting our boarding passes. Then we went through immigration. This was
a slow process so we were glad we were there when we were because when we
turned, there were suddenly a lot of people behind us. We couldn’t sell off our
Algerian dinar so we ended up buying some souvenirs. I bought some fridge
magnets of the Casbah in Algiers. Small consolation ;’(
We boarded the plane and I spent the whole
journey reading. I also performed prayers and it was a good thing too as there
was heavy air traffic and our plane had to hover over Istanbul before we could
land about 25 minutes later than scheduled. I was too sleepy and only managed
to browse a few shops (prices are quoted in € and some looked to be much lower than
in KLIA).
Saturday, 3 February 2018
Our flight back to KL was also delayed by 30
minutes and we had to board a bus to get to the airplane. I managed to fall
asleep while waiting for take-off and CT later told me that even take-off was
delayed by an hour. We landed just after 18:00 and I only got my bag almost an
hour later.
So that was my trip to Algeria and
Alhamdulillah, we did it! Well, except for Casbah of course...
|