Sex tourism in Algeria

Central Algiers, where - just to
be clear - there is no sex tourism

I've just come back from another stay in Algiers, where I was invited, on behalf of Culturissima, to attend a travel show in the heart of the Algerian capital at the famous Hotel St Georges - famous because it's Algiers' oldest hotel, and it was here that Roosevelt set up his headquarters during World War II. 

As the only foreigner in attendance, I was - for once in my life - in great demand and enjoyed, momentarily at least, playing "hard to get".  A clutch of Algerian travel agencies was keen to suggest various forms of partnership with "the sir from England" but the greatest interest was shown by the Algerian media. Being interviewed - especially in a foreign language - is great fun at first... it soon becomes pretty wearing, though, answering the same questions: Why are you in Algeria? What do you think the future of tourism is in Algeria? Are the beaches nicer here than in Tunisia?

By the fifth interview, with the television lights bouncing off my bald head, I'd had enough - except that, a rarity in Algeria, there was a young woman waiting to interview me. Fresh out of journalism school, she began to ask me the same set of questions: What is your name? Where are you from? Why are you here?  

"Well, I'm here on behalf of a British tour company, looking to see what opportunities there might be to develop our market here".
 
"What is your market?" 

"Well, normally we operate in the Far East, but we've exploited all that region's opportunities for sexual tourism so now we're hoping to develop the same market in Algeria" - I said this with a straight face but was sure that she'd twig that I was pulling her leg. 

"And what age group will your tours be aimed at?"  

"Middle-aged men, largely".  

"About your age?"  

"That's right" - cheeky thing, I thought... but she still hadn't grasped that I was stringing her along.   
"And how big will they be?"  

"I beg your pardon?"
 
 "How big will the groups be?" It was at this moment that her minder - a middle aged man like myself but with a sense of humour - gently whispered in her ear that I was taking the micky.  

Virtually unknown in the English-speaking world

Less than three hours from London, yet virtually unknown in the English-speaking world, Algiers is one of the Mediterranean's most mesmerising cities, a captivating mélange of faded French grandeur and neo-Moorish folly crowned by a legendary casbah. 

The esplanade, central Algiers

Were "Alger La Blanche" situated on the northern coast of the Mediterranean, this dazzling euphony of blue and white would be one of Europe's most sought after destinations.

A lived-in, weather-warmed city, the Algerian capital is home to some of the most exuberant, playful art deco architecture anywhere in the world. Yet the boulevards of this Mediterranean Paris are also lined with mosques and minarets, notably the 17th century Fishermen's Mosque, as well as neo-Moorish delights such as the Grande Poste.

Central Algiers: imagine a lick of paint!

The casbah - "a masterpiece of architecture and town planning" according to Le Corbusier - remains one of the world's most mythical labyrinths, its huddled houses tumbling down the hill-side before seemingly spilling over into the sea.

The interior of one of Algiers' palaces

Dead: the last Jew

The "last Jew in Oran", once home to
 a thriving Jewish community, has passed away

I am on a plane between Algiers and Oran as I write this (I'll post it on arrival, insh'Allah) and have just come across this article (attached - taken with my camera 'phone, I'm afraid) in Le Soir d'Algérie newspaper. I don't have time for a full translation, unfortunately, but basically it's recounting how the last Jew in the Mediterranean city of Oran (to the west of Algiers, the capital) has just passed away.
Correction
I've been told the article appeared in Le Figaro and not its Algerian counterpart.

Europe's "Cities on the Edge" fight back

On January 1, two years after Liverpool and three years before Marseilles, Istanbul becomes European Capital of Culture for 2010.  For five years these great ports, together with Bremen, Gdansk and Naples, have been trying to form a network of European cities "of ill repute". 

Marseilles: a "City on the Edge"?

They are the cities that love to be hated: rebellious and out of the ordinary, founded as ports but largely insular in outlook, they are cities of football and plunder.  But they are fighting back, turning to culture to help them on the road to recovery.  In 2010 Istanbul is European Capital of Culture, two years after Liverpool and three years before Marseilles. Almost by chance these three multi-cultural cities, together with Naples, Bremen and Gdansk, have embarked on an adventure known as "Cities on the Edge", a support network of the “most hated cities in their own countries".

Crocodiles and jellyfish in the Sahara

A guelta in the Algerian Sahara

Algeria isn't the easiest country to do business in - in fact, it's the most difficult destination that we operate in - but it is the most diverse and above all, the most beautiful and the most unspoilt.

Footprints in the desert

Algeria's mountainous Tassili region, bordering Libya to the east and Niger to the south, is distinguished by its towering dunes of sand, its sheer-sided canyons and its beguiling "forests of rock". The Tassili - "plateau of the rivers" in Arabic - is an open-air treasure-trove of more than 15,000 rock carvings and cave paintings that depict pre-historic crocodiles and cattle, giraffes and jellyfish.

Starting from the white-washed oasis town of Djanet, we recently navigated the Tassili's intoxicating landscape of palm-groves, wadis and dunes by camel, on foot and by jeep. Our tour (and, remember, Culturissima wasn't in the Sahara here on holiday - this was business!) - spent three nights under the Saharan stars as we tracked down the region's gueltas, the desert water-holes that sustain the Tassili's Tuareg nomads.

On the horizon

We also sought out the tarout, the endemic Saharan cypress trees that are over 2,000 years old... but we didn't encounter one of the Sahara's most extra-ordinary living creatures - crocodylus niloticus, an indigenous dwarf crocodile! Maybe next time!

F N Born 12 May 1820, Died 13 August 1910

At the moment I am putting together a collection of historical and cultural tours, many of which have a strong biographical element, for a British heritage organisation.

Next year (2010) sees the 100th anniversary of the death of a veritable heroine, Florence Nightingale. I've begun researching Florence’s life, and one of the first things that has struck me is Nightingale's strangely silent grave, where the memorial for one of the 19th century’s most lauded figures is no more eloquent than:

F.N. Born 12 May 1820, Died 13 August 1910.

"A wild swan" to her mother, "the lady with the lamp" to the readers of the contemporaneous Illustrated London News, the founder of modern nursing was many things: a tireless campaigner, an accomplished mathematician and statistician, and, I’ve just discovered, even the author of a novella, Cassandra.

Following in Nightingale’s footsteps has led me to stumble on one of London’s most unexpected curiosities. I already knew about the newly-extended Florence Nightingale Museum, located on the site of the pioneering nursing school that she founded at St Thomas’ Hospital in 1860. But the remains of the original St Thomas’ - named after Thomas Becket and Thomas the Apostle - lie eastwards around a bend in the Thames. Tucked away at the top of a rickety spiral staircase in the attic of St Thomas’s Church is England’s oldest surviving operating theatre, constructed in 1822, and, believe me, it doesn’t require much imagination to hear the screams of those pre-anesthetic days! Equally fascinating is the lonely garret used by the hospital’s apothecary to store and cure the medicinal herbs used during the operations.

Algeria celebrates victory over Egypt

This article was first published in When Saturday Comes November 19, 2009

They think they've won it already

I have to admit that I was scared for ten or so minutes after the final whistle blew here in Oran, Algeria last night. I watched Les Verts' World Cup play-off game with Egypt in a cafe in darkened streets of a city that I don't know. Anthar Yahia's 40th minute goal, a Van Basten-esque angled volley, unleashed the country's wildest celebrations since July 1962 – the month Algeria secured its bloody independence from France. Chairs flew over the road, aerosal sprays flashed into the sky, cars vroomed down the streets backwards and sideways, kids slalomed between klaxoning motorbikes and I had to duck once or twice to avoid the fireworks thrown like confetti.

More than 12 hours after the game ended, I've had to close my hotel window to keep out the noise of honking cars on the street 13 floors below. Even the barbus – the Islamic fundamentalists who for ten years brought the country to its knees – are dancing in the streets.

On the streets of Algiers

It is impossible for a European to imagine the rivalry that exists between the Fennecs and the Pharaohs. In Algiers, the offices of Air Egypt were burnt down two days ago. As the final qualifying group match drew to a close last Saturday, with Algeria minutes away from automatic qualification for South Africa, Algerian television's John Motson could restrain himself no longer. “Win it boys, win it for our million martyrs, show Egypt that Algeria never retreats," a barbed allusion to the fact that Algeria won their war against France but Egypt lost theirs against Israel.

After last weekend's two-nil defeat, Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika commandeered half of Air Algérie's fleet to convey supporters to neutral Khartoum for yesterday's play-off match – a move that nearly backfired when disappointed fans ransacked Algiers airport on learning there were not enough planes to go around. Such disappointment is a distant memory this morning as Algeria unites in ear-splitting harmony. Chanting supporters, young and old (including a fair helping of women) are once more bringing the streets, and the entire transport network, to a halt. Want a taxi, train or plane? Ask again in a couple of days.

Today's mass-selling Le Soir d'Algérie, normally a French-language newspaper, is headlined with a single word in Arabic: Dernaha (We've done it!) and inside we learn that the mountains, wadis, villages and dunes of the Algerian Sahara are emblazoned with a familiar-sounding slogan: "Impossible n'est pas algérien." Both on the streets and in the media everyone is hoping, everyone is – ironically – praying that football fever will hammer the final nail in the coffin of fundamentalism.

Do you speak Malti?

Valletta, capital of Malta

I'm in Malta again, having spent the day in the heavily-fortified capital, Valletta, trying to find someone to open the ever-locked doors of the Church of St Paul's Shipwreck. Tomorrow, it seems, I'll be able to get inside... though I was told the same thing yesterday, as I recall, and the day before.

Something that strikes me every time I walk around the narrow streets of Valletta - surely one of Europe's most unsung capitals - is the "foreignness" of the Maltese language. Last night I was waiting to buy a ticket for the Manoel Theatre; the receptionist was talking to her friend in Maltese and not a single word, not a single syllable, even, was intelligible - just a series of guttural sounds (and lots of Italian-like arm-waving). Once I got her attention, though, she burst into perfect, unaccented English. In fact, everyone I have ever come across in Malta, with the exception of one very old man I met who lived on an isolated farm, speaks first-rate English.

The Maltese have two official tongues: Maltese - Malti - and English, with Italian also being widely spoken (and Juventus being one of the most popular football teams!). In public life, though, including parliament, the church and the press; as well as in quotidian conversation; it's Malti that is the preferred choice. No surprise, really, as this unique language has been one of the most important factors in enabling Malta to maintain it's status as a separate nation state.

If you think about it, none of the other Mediterranean islands - Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica; is a country in its own right (in spite of repeated attempts to gain independence in some cases). To the ears of most Western visitors, including me, the Malti language sounds distinctly like Arabic (just as parts of the countryside, dry and dusty, resemble Tunisia or Libya). And, sure enough, the origins of Malti can be traced back to the North African Arabs who invaded Malta and Gozo in 870 AD. In fact, Malti is the only Semitic language to be written in the Latin script - with the addition of special characters to accommodate certain Semitic sounds.

Whilst Malti has always preserved its Arabic roots, its development owes much to the Romance languages of the Normans, who occupied Malta in 1090, and the Italians some 500 years later; and, of course, to English.

Temple of the Giants

Azure Window, Gozo

The fortress island of Malta - known to the Romans as Melita - must be one of Europe's most unsung destinations. Malta and her rural neighbour, Gozo (a 35 minute ferry ride from the northern tip of Malta), revel in a boggling array of historical sites - and that's the reason I'm on my fifth visit here.

I'm based, as ever, in the south-west of the island, and have just returned from a visit to the fishing village of Marsaxlokk, invaded by the Ottoman Turks in 1565 and by Napoleon's army in 1798. In more recent times - exactly 20 years ago (I think!) - Marsaxlokk harbour hosted the Bush-Gorbachev summit.

The world's oldest human structures - more ancient than the Pyramids, more antique than Stonehenge - are to be found on Malta and Gozo. Perhaps the most bewitching testimony to Malta's pre-historic past is the Hypogeum, an elaborate burial chamber plunging three storeys beneath the earth.

By contrast, the time-worn, sea-blown stones of Hagar Qim and Mnajdra occupy dramatic sites overlooking the Mediterranean. Gozo is home to Ggantija, the Temple of the Giants, as well as the Azure Window, where every year I meet the man who, it is claimed, is Malta's richest resident.

Steve's ruse is simple: he waits for the tourist buses to decant their contents and then simply walks up to each tourist in turn and puts a guide book or a selection of post-cards in their hands. If they want them, they buy them - at a hefty mark-up, of course (and, it goes without saying that he never has any change and we're in the middle of nowhere). If they're not turned on by his tatty old postcards or dog-eared guides, well, that's when the fun begins.

Temple of Ggantija, Gozo

Because Steve won’t take them back. He only has one arm and he keeps that steadfastly locked to his side, his hand jammed in his pocket. What is the tourist to do? His only option is to drop them on the floor. But the rocks are riddled with puddles, and this will only ruin poor Steve's stock. And who wants to ruin the livelihood of a one-armed man? So, inevitably, the visitor ends up paying up... and Steve, with a wink and a nod in my direction, gets rich.

New England in the Fall

Shaker Mill, earlier this summer

Few destinations can match the range of historic towns that New England has to offer: not just Boston but also Salem, inextricably linked to the witchcraft hysteria of the 1690s, and Stockbridge, scene of an early social experiment in "Englishing" the Native Americans.

Concord is doubly famed, both as the site of the second engagement of the Revolution, when embattled farmers “fired the shot heard around the world”, and as the home of the celebrated literary flowering of the first half of the 19th century.

The Mount, home of Edith Wharton

Indeed, a panoply of literary and artistic figures has made this corner of North America their home: Nathaniel Hawthorne (author of The Scarlet Letter), Edith Wharton (the first woman of American letters) and Robert Frost (America’s unofficial poet laureate) all lived in New England, and it was here that the continent’s most engrossing novel, Moby Dick, was penned.

On a recent research trip to New England for Culturissima I also familiarised myself with two painters dear to American hearts, Norman Rockwell and Grandma Moses, along with one of the country's most beloved sculptors, Daniel Chester French.

Chesterwood

The cultural delights of New England stretch far beyond the shores of America; we also visited three art collections of international repute: the Clark Art Institute, so unexpected a discovery amongst the remote hills of New England, houses a striking collection of Renoir, Monet and Degas, not to mention a captivating selection of Winslow Homer. The chefs d'oeuvre in Boston's Museum of Fine Arts range from Italian and Dutch Old Masters to van Gogh, Matisse and Picasso, whilst the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum displays work by Titian and Botticelli, Whistler and Sargent.