Out and About – and a Camel

Spring has sprung in Algiers! We’ve had lovely sunny weather in the 70s recently, and a few friends and I have decided to take advantage of this by getting out on the weekends. There’s not tons to do, but even just getting out of the house and going for a drive is better than nothing.

I also decided I needed to take my car out for more adventurous trips than to the market or the grocery store. Driving in Algiers is not my favorite thing ever (rules of the road and rightaways are either not really existent or not really followed), but it’s definitely doable, especially on Friday mornings when locals are less likely to be out driving around. So this Friday I picked up 3 friends and drove out to Bouchaoui Forest, which is about 30 minutes away from downtown Algiers and has some good running paths. Of course it took us more than 30 minutes to get there, since we weren’t really sure which exit to take off the highway, missed the exit, had to turn around, and got stuck in traffic. [Side story: the traffic was due to construction on the highway. The construction was not blocked off, there were just a couple trucks working on a ripped up piece of road. Because there was no blocked off area, cars were trying to escape the traffic by driving through the construction area (ie on part of the road that was missing blacktop). That particular section was right by our exit, and in the interest of not missing it AGAIN, I made the choice to also drive on the road under construction. When in Algiers…]

But back to the point. After one more wrong turn and hopping out of the car to ask for directions, we finally made it to the forest. Whew! The driving adventure was worth it, the weather was perfect for running, and though the playground on the edge of the forest was jammed with small children, the running trail was relatively free of people.

After about an hour of exercise (and avoiding a gentleman who I had recently refused a visa who really wanted to know how to reverse that decision – one of the especially awkward parts of consular work), we returned to the car and had a much less eventful trip back into town, where we found one of the only restaurants open for lunch on a Friday in Algiers. Fortunately it was a good one, with some really tasty fish and Camembert croquettes (think fancy mozzerella sticks made with Camembert).

Lunch turned out to be an adventure in and of itself – as we waited for our food, the cafe down the street had some kind of fire – we saw billowing smoke and eventually a fire truck showed up. No flames, though, and it seemed to be under control. No one was really panicking. Then all of a sudden we saw a camel walking down the road! Which was weird, because we aren’t exactly near the desert in Algiers, plus were in one of the nicer parts of town called Sidi Yahia, eating at an outdoor cafe across from the United Colors of Benneton store. The camel’s handler was walking it around and accepting money to take pictures with it, a la the creepy Elmo outside 30 Rock in NY. Here’s a photo of one of my friends with the camel. The Mango store in the background gives you an idea of the area. Not so much the natural habitat of a camel.