The Sahara... our journey

[smlobx]

I just wanted to open this blog on our upcoming trip across the Sahara desert through Algeria and Tunisia.

It has been a long time planning and working out the logistics but we are finally on our way!

Our first stop was to fly from NC to Switzerland where we are picking up our "car". It is a Land Cruiser outfitted by our long time friend, Hans, who we will be accompanying along with others we'll meet in a few days in Marseille before we take a ferry across the Med.

But first I wanted to share some Overlanding eye candy that those of us in the US can only dream of having. These rigs are quite common in Switzerland as there is quite an Overlanding community here. Enjoy!

 

[smlobx]

The last rig is ours. More to come soon!

 

[alanymarce]

What is your planned route (assuming you have one)?

 

[the deputy]

Looking forward to following along. Safe travels!

 

[Rovertrader]

My brother and I ran into a couple from Switzerland in Central America whilst on a motorcycle trip- all of us were on two wheels. They were quite surprised to see two Americans actually ‘exploring’ and not at Disney- granted this was over 40 years ago before ‘overlanding’ was coined. Came to find out as you implied quite the norm for them!! Enjoy the adventure and look forward to following along…

 

[smlobx]

All right! We made it to Marsaille after visiting good friends near Lyon. They just bought a new (to them) Land Rover and are fitting it out for a 4 month trip to South America next January.
Here is a picture of our 2 "cars" and a view out of our room at Marseilles.

 

[smlobx]

What is your planned route (assuming you have one)?

Yes we have a rough route that I will share at the end of the trip. We are working with Trips 4 Africa to map some of the less travelled areas of Algeria for future explorers!
We are meeting the rest of our team members tonight before we board the ship tomorrow AM and land in Algiers the following day.

 

[alanymarce]

In case it's helpful, here's one of my tracks, which led into some remote dunes and areas a long way from any road - beautiful country!

 

[Arjan]

Enjoy & be safe !

 

[smlobx]

We boarded the Corsica Lines ferry along with at least 500 other vehicles about 1000 and left about an hour later. The trip was smooth and the cabin we had reserved served our needs. We had our first logistics meeting in our cabin and went over the embarkation process for the following day. More on that in a minute...
After a restful night sleep we docked in Algiers at 0900.

 

[smlobx]

We were told that the customs process could take ALL DAY... and unfortunately they were right.
We got off the boat about 1000 and started waiting in various lines.

The first was just a passport check and that our passport matched the ships record.

We then drove around to another series of lines where we were reunited with the rest of our team. We had an expediter who collected our passports to get the visa process started and we waited and waited...you get the idea. A few hours later we went into a small room to have our pictures taken in several poses and also had our fingerprints taken. All the while this was happening we were seeing other vehicles having to completely empty the contents of their vehicles for customs inspections. It's hard to describe the scene as almost everyone had their cars literally packed beyond capacity with goods bought from France. I would have taken pictures but that was forbidden. We were wondering if we would have to do the same but our fixer was trying to get around that.

After a few more hours we had our visa and were told we would get our vehicles scanned by a large mobile device instead of having to unpack everything so we drove around the back of the facility and waited in a much smaller line. Then we finally drove up the ramp and had the car scanned!! All was good and we eventually drove off.

I do have to say that the customs agents were very hospitable even bringing out bottles of water for us toward the end of the day.

 

[smlobx]

We are currently staying at the beautiful Hotel El-Djazair on top of a hill overlooking the city and will be tourists today!


An interesting note about this hotel is that this is where the Allies planned the southern part of the European invasion in WW2. People like Eisenhower and Churchill were here! Pretty cool. We were even able to see the room where Eisenhower's headquarters was and the desk he used...

 

[alanymarce]

The view from the terrace in front of the restaurant is great!

 

[Christian P.]

Awesome. I am seeing more and more of trip reports from Algeria and Tunisia so I assume it's getting safer - which is great.

 

[smlobx]

Parts of Algeria are safe. There are areas of our trip that may require a military escort but more on that later...

Finances and logistics moving forward...
Before I left the US I went to my local bank and converted funds into Euros as part of my trip is/will be there and converting Euros into Algerian Dinars is easier. The official exchange rate is about 147 Dinars to the Euro but as with many countries the street price is often better. We were able to negotiate 242 Dinars to the Euro with the help of our fixer so we are pretty happy about that!
One thing that is great about Algeria is the cost of fuel, specifically diesel. Current price is about 18 to 20 cents per liter. Yes you read that correctly! However, on three sections of our trip we will need to refuel in the middle of the desert far from any town. That first truly desert section will be about 1200 km. before we need to refuel. We have arranged to have fuel brought to us at a prearranged date and location. We are anticipating needing 600 liters of diesel to be able to get to a fuel station and the cost will be 1.50 Euros per liter. Almost a 10X difference in cost but still less than most of Europe. We are leaving in a couple of hours and like a little kid I'm up very early in anticipation. It will be several days until I'll have cell reception again so please be patient...