Luxuriously late start. And then we stopped just a few kilometres up the road to shop and change money. Everywhere are women wrapped in sheets of different materials and holding them in place with their teeth.
Cold and windy in the back of the truck when we moved on, with the odd drop of rain. Our first day in Algeria is a kaleidoscope of shocks to the senses: all sorts of pungent smells from sewage to sulphur; garbage strewn across the fields; more eucalypts and other trees with small red peppers. Two men in a van behind us handed us some loaves of bread - which we devoured as if we hadn’t eaten for days. They followed behind us for nearly an hour before we turned off.
Camped in a farmer’s ploughed field, with roads on three sides and dogs nearby; cowpats, kids lighting fires and setting off firecrackers. The farmer came over, angry that we had camped there, complaining that his grass wouldn't grow after we’d left and there would be nothing left for his cows to eat. Probably just a means of trying us to p-ay him some money c or perhaps he was right, and we shouldn't have camped there. Eventually he gave us a large plastic drum in which to put our garbage, but I did wonder where he would then put the bucket full of rubbish.
Talked about Egypt and Turkey round the campfire, telling Bob all the things he should do and see. Really made me wish I was going back, especially to Luxor. I’d really love to buy THAT carpet (there's always something you regret not buying).
Five of us slept on the truck, Vicki and Hawken with mosquito nets on one side, Bob and I sharing mine on the other, trying to dodge vicious, striped attackers buzzing around the truck.
Incredible sound and light show during the night, like lightning strikes in the truck. Vicki and I simultaneously checked that we weren’t touching metal parts, not realising that the light was so strong and the sound so loud they were carrying to us from a safe distance away. Bob thought the grumpy farmer was trying to sabotage the truck.
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