Away in the desert

As I boarded the plane in Paris this morning, on my way to Adrar in the middle of the Sahara, the sky was grey and the weather cool. On stepping out of the plane and onto the tarmac, I was hit by the warmest wind I’ve ever encountered. It was a cool 43°C in the shade, and the wind felt as if someone had left the oven door open (only this time I was in the oven).

Adrar town is the wilaya (prefecture) of Adrar province, which is where Timimoun is located. I am headed to Timimoun to evaluate tourism development opportunities there. On arriving at the hotel, I turned on the TV (what else does one do?) and the first two things I see are, you guessed it: Pimp my Ride (subtitled in Arabic), and an Eddie Murphy romance movie (also subtitled). It’s amazing how far American trash reaches… You can run, but you can’t hide.

We took a walk around town in the late afternoon, and there are some pictures to show for it.

This shows traditional building materials of this area, which is mud brick that’s cool in summer and warmish in winter.

A butcher shop in the souk. No, the meat that’s hanging isn’t refrigerated, and that’s why he hasn’t got much of it.

The oases of the Sahara are watered by structures called foggaras, which require manholes every 20 m or so. Here are some manhole covers. Foggaras are hand-dug tunnels that can span a much as 14 km and provide gravity (ie: no pumping) irrigation to the oases from the Albien aquifer that stretches from Algeria to Egypt.
The main drag in Adrar as you exit the hotel.

More main drag

Still more main drag. Notice the shop under the arcades.

A mosque at nightfall

An old Peugeot taxi drives by an administrative building in traditional style.

The dumpy hotel room at the Hotel Touat (state owned and run)

Same dumpy room

Selling veggies outside. These guys are very dark skinned, but they are Algerians, not immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa.

The main shopping area at ‘rush hour’.

A street scene at rush hour

The main square at dawn, this place is teeming with life in the evening.